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THE PERUVIANS 

(INDIAN RACES) 



Xtbtare of tbe Great THRotlo 
no. 5 



LIBRARY OF THE GREAT WORLD 

COMPRISING ORIGINAL VOLUMES OF 

HMstorE, JSiograpbs, Science, {Travel, Etc. 

In cloth and morocco, with frontispiece. Published 

for subscribers at 30 cents in cloth, and 

4j cents in morocco. 

EDITED BY 

A. VAN DOREN HONEYMAN 



BOOKS ISSUED. 

THE AZTECS. By The Editor. 
REINDEER-LAND. By The Editor. 
THE HOLLAND OF TO-DAY. By J. A. Mets. 
HOW THE WORLD WAS MADE. By Wm. H. 

Larrabee, LL. D. 
THE PERUVIANS. By Arthur Howard Noll. 

some succeeding volumes: 
IN SUABIA-LAND. By Laura Maxwell. 
ADMIRAL PAUL JONES. By The Editor. 
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE STARS. By 
The Editor. 

Etc., Etc., Etc. 
[Order of publication of volumes not certain.] 




Francisco Pizarro 



Xibrars of tbe Great TOlorlo 



THE PERUVIANS 



(INDIAN RACES) 



BY 

ARTHUR HOWARD NOLL 

Author of "Short History of Mexico," "From 
Empire to Republic," etc. 




©latnfiel&, Hew Jersefi 
feonesman & Company 

1905 



Fs 



■NT 



Dedicated to 

.Samuel W. Baldwin 

Newark, New Jersey 



' 0ON6R£SS 

Copies rtw&vev- 

AUG 17 1905 

GoittffwiK u\uy 
glass cl. /j& in* 



THE CHAPTERS 

I. Introduction , g 

II. The Incas 14 

III. The "Civilization" oe the Peruvians 28 

IV. The Breaking Up of the Incariate 51 

V. The Spanish Conquest 54 

VI. The Peruvians Under Spanish Rule 73 

VII. The Evolution of Modern Peru 81 






r 



f 

1: 



Copyright, 1905, by 
Honeyman & Company 

Published June 34. 1905 




"There arises before the prophetic eye a great picture 
in which the lofty roads of Peru, the sumptuous temples, 
palaces and gardons are . . . to be numbered with Baby- 
lon, Nineveh and the things that have been." 
—Sir Arthur Helps, 

in " Spanish Conquest of America." 



THE PERUVIANS 

CHAPTER I 

Introduction 

Confusion of Names. — Great confusion exists 
in regard to the names of the races and tribes oc- 
cupying the western world at the time of its dis- 
covery, conquest and colonization by Europeans. 
It was due to an error that the native races of 
America came to be called Indians in the first 
place, and after the error was discovered it was 
thought unnecessary to devise another name by 
which to designate the red race. This but illus- 
trates the first difficulty that confronts us in an 
attempt to write accurately and intelligibly, al- 
beit briefly and concisely, of the people who 

(5) 



6 THE PERUVIANS 

are the subject of this book. We have called 
them in the title to the book, "The Peruvians," 
which is our English form of the Spanish "Peru- 
anos." The latter means the natives of Peru. 
Looking at a modern map of South America, how- 
ever, we may observe that the country, now called 
Peru, is bounded on the south by Chile, on the 
southeast by Bolivia, on the east by Brazil, and 
on the north by Ecuador, and has an area of about 
450,000 square miles. The people of whom we 
are writing occupied in the early years of the Six- 
teenth Century a country which knew no such 
boundaries. It was not until the early part of the 
Nineteenth Century that the states of Ecuador, 
Bolivia and Chile were definitively partitioned off 
from a country which has retained the name of 
Peru. 

Tlie Firuas.— Previous to the Eleventh Cen- 
tury of the Christian era, there existed a people in 
the highlands of the Andes, in the vicinity of what 
is now the boundary between Peru and Bolivia, 
who departed, leaving behind them the evidences 
of their having been somewhat advanced in civili- 
zation. They were the Hatun Runas, or, as they 
are also called, the Piruas. Not unlikely the 
name of Peru was remotely derived from the Pi- 
ruas. However that may be, Biru was the name 
of a chief in the territory south of the Isthmus of 
Panama. His country was visited by two Span- 
ish explorers in 15 15. For ten years thereafter 
the "land of Biru" or "Peru" was the most south- 
erly land on the Pacific coast known to the Span- 
iards, and was much talked of among Spanish ad-. 



THE PERUVIANS 7 

venturers as a land supposed to be full of gold. 
As it was a long time after this that the name 
Peru was restricted to a single South American 
state, embracing but a small portion of territory 
which formerly went by that name, it seems quite 
as proper that we should call the people of whom 
we are writing, " Peruvians," as that we should 
designate them as Indians in the first place, or 
seek any other name to confer upon them. 

If, however, we desired to be more scientifically 
exact, we might find a name in this manner: In 
the western portion of the South American con- 
tinent are chains of mountains rising abruptly 
from the coast to an average height of about 12,- 
500 feet. The length of these chains is about 4,- 
500 miles, their average width about one hundred 
miles, and they contain many celebrated volcanoes. 
This mountain s)-stem is known to the Spanish- 
speaking people as "Los Cordilleros de los Andes" 
— the chains of the Andes — probably deriving the 
name Andes from anti, a word in one of the ab- 
original languages of the region, meaning copper. 
Of late years a general name has been bestowed 
upon all the native races occupying this region 
previous to the advent of the Europeans. They 
are called Andesians, or Antesians, to distinguish 
them from the. tribes occupying the other portions 
of the continent. Such a title is geographical rath- 
er than ethnological, signifying the region in 
which the people live rather than their racial char- 
acteristics. 

The ftuichuas. — Having thus discovered a term 
that can be used, for the sake of convenience, to 



8 THE PERUVIANS 

designate the Indians of this region, it becomes 
necessary, for further convenience, to divide the 
Andesian Indians into groups of tribes related to 
each other through the languages they spoke. Un- 
der this ethnological classification, the most im- 
portant group has received the name of Quichuas 
(spelled also Quechuas, Kichuas, or Kechuas). 
This name meant originally "mountaineers," and 
was never used by the Indians themselves as a 
tribal designation, but was first employed in a 
grammar published in 1560, by Fray Domingo de 
San Tomas, a Dominican monk, to designate the 
languages spoken with dialectic differences, in the 
Thirteenth and subsequent centuries, by the tribe 
of Andesians which became dominant in Cuzco 
about the year 1240 of the Christian era. 

The Quichua language is still a common lan- 
guage in the interior of the country designated as 
Peru on the modern maps of South America. So 
widely was it spoken in the early part of the Six- 
teenth Century, when the Europeans first made 
their appearance in that region, that it was called 
by them "La Lengua General del Peru" — the gen- 
eral language of Peru. 

The Incas, or Cuzcans. — Quichua is, after all, 
a group name, and it would serve our convenience 
greatly if we could find a name by which to desig- 
nate the tribe which settled at Cuzco, about the 
year 1240, and upon whose development the 
whole story we have to tell depends. Some writ- 
ers allege that this tribe "assumed the name of 
Incas" as a special tribal title, and we read a 
great deal about the "Incas," as though that name 



THE PERUVIANS 9 

were the equivalent of ancient Peruvians. Inca 
was the title of the tribal chief and the name of the 
office he held. Into the character of the office 
we shall inquire later. We can readily imagine 
that the Europeans might have understood the ti- 
tle of the tribal chief to have been a tribal name, 
just as they understood the name of a chief, Biru, 
to be the name of a territory. But we can scarce- 
ly believe that such a name was assumed by the 
tribe, or even accepted after it had been conferred 
by someone else. Such a thing would have been 
very unusual among Indians, and there seems to 
be no conclusive evidence that anything like it 
ever occurred until subsequent to the appearance 
of the Europeans. 

We may do this, however. We may, to serve 
our present convenience, derive a name for the 
tribe from the locality it occupies, as has been so 
often done in Mexico and elsewhere. For exam- 
ple, we speak of the Texcucans, the Chalcans, the 
Tlatelolcans and others of the Mexican valley. So 
we might call the tribe in whose career at Cuzco 
we are so deeply interested, the Cuzcans. 

The Incariate. — It has been repeatedly de- 
clared in books upon Peru and the Peruvians, 
that the settlement in Cuzco developed in the 
course of a few centuries into an Empire, which 
is usually called the "Empire of the Incas." This 
seems to have been a ready way of disposing of 
matters which might, with a little trouble, have 
been otherwise more accurately explained. Neither 
the Peruvians nor any other Indians knew any- 
thing whatever about monarchical government. It 



io THE PERUVIANS 

was wholly foreign to their conceptions. Their 
political institutions consisted at first of a military 
democracy, governed by a tribal council, in which 
the tribal officers were elective, never hereditary. 
In Mexico this form of government advanced one 
step in the formation of a confederacy of tribes. 
In Peru it advanced still further. How much 
further we do not know precisely. It seems im- 
probable that it should have attained to the ex- 
alted height of an empire, or even to that of a 
kingdom, as we understand those words ; or that 
its government ever lost its relation to the tribal 
council. It is evident, however, that the relation 
of the Cuzcans to other tribes brought under their 
dominating influence, usually by conquest, w T as su- 
perior to that established between the Aztecs and 
their surrounding tribes; and that this relation- 
ship, as it developed, increased the powers and ex- 
tended the territorial jurisdiction of the Incas, 
and elevated the pueblo of Cuzco to the position 
of a capital or seat of government for a wide ex- 
panse of territory. 

This dominance of the Cuzcans, under a suc- 
cession of Incas, over other tribes, demands the 
use of a convenient term more accurate than Em- 
pire, by which it may be designated. There was 
no term in the Spanish language by which to des- 
ignate it. Nor have we any in the English lan- 
guage, unless we coin one and call it an "Incari- 
ate." We call the government of a viceroy (Span- 
ish virey), a vireinate. We speak of the func- 
tions of the Incas as Incarial. It seems proper, 



THE PERUVIANS n 

therefore, to use the term "Incariate" to indicate 
what is usually termed the "Empire of the Incas." 

The American Indians. — When first observed 
by Europeans, early in the Sixteenth Century, the 
Cuzcans presented the highest plane of civiliza- 
tion reached by any of the native races in Ameri- 
ica. In no other part of the western world had 
the progress of an indigenous race advanced so 
far. The so-called "civilization" of the Cuzcans 
has had the misfortune to be exaggerated by the 
majority of writers. This has been due to the 
too recent application of the sciences of ethnology 
and anthropology to the American peoples. We 
properly approach a study of the Peruvians and 
their "civilization" by a study of some of the 
characteristics of the race to which they belonged. 

With the exception of the Eskimos, the Indians 
of the western hemisphere constitute a single race, 
whose physical characteristics are remarkably alike 
throughout all tribes, though diverse conditions 
of life in various parts of the two continents have 
caused differences of stature, of color and devel- 
opment in certain directions. Yet these differences 
are of minor importance, and there is no wide va- 
riation, such as is to be found among the different 
groups of the white, black and yellow races of the 
other parts of the world. But though an Indian 
is always and wherever found an Indian, yet each 
tribe has its own characteristics. These charac- 
teristics may relate to the language the tribe 
speaks. There have been in North America, north 
of Mexico, nearly sixty distinct linguistic stocks 
or groups of languages spoken by Indian tribes; 



12 THE PERUVIANS 

languages which, so far as known, had no rela- 
tion to each other, and represented groups of In- 
dians apparently unconnected by ties of blood with 
any other. family. 

As the families differed one from another, so 
the tribes differed in culture. Some were in the 
nomadic state. Some had become sedentary. Some 
were in savagery. Others had advanced to one or 
the other of the two earlier periods of barbarism. 
For all Indians below the art of pottery were in 
savagery. The making of pottery presupposes vil- 
lage life and more or less progress in the simpler 
arts. The stage of progress towards civilization 
known as barbarism has been divided into three 
periods. The transition from the lower status, or 
older period of barbarism, was marked by the reg- 
ular employment of tillage of the soil and the use 
of adobe brick or stone in buildings. The middle 
period merged into an upper status, or later pe- 
riod, by the use of metals other than iron. The 
upper, or later period, was marked by a knowl- 
edge of the process of smelting iron ore. The end 
of this period, and the beginning of true civiliza- 
tion, is marked by the adoption of a phonetic 
alphabet and the production of written records. 

This method of classification being employed, 
it will be observed that no American Indians of 
either continent had reached the upper status of 
barbarism, for none had attained to a knowledge 
of smelting iron. The Peruvians, though some- 
what in advance of the Aztecs as regards the de- 
velopment of a system of government which ren- 
dered homogeneous many tribes within a wide 



THE PERUVIANS 13 

extent of territory, and created something akin to 
national life, were, in common with the Aztecs, 
in the middle status of barbarism. 

Indian Social Organization. — Substantially 
universal in the Indian race in both continents 
was that system of social organization which is 
called gentile. This consisted of organization in- 
to gens (kin or clan), phratry and tribe. Gentile 
organization is one of the oldest and most widely 
prevalent institutions of mankind. It furnished 
the plan of government of ancient society in nearly 
or quite every portion of the world. It was every- 
where the means by which society, in the begin- 
ning, was organized and held together. 

Under this system the gens or kin furnished the 
unit of tribal existence. Briefly explained, a gens 
or kin is composed of a supposed female ancestor 
and her children, together with the children of her 
female descendants to the end of time. It includes 
her sons, but not their children, who must belong 
to the gentes of their respective mothers. Among 
Indians with whom a system of tribal subdivision 
denoted by totems prevailed, each member of the 
gens bore the name of the totem of the female an- 
cestor; for the right of conferring names upon its 
members was one of the several rights, privileges 
and obligations by which the gens or kin was in- 
dividualized. 

The phratry was a collection of gentes or kins 
made for religious purposes and for social games. 
The tribe was the aggregate of the gentes, for it 
was possible for a tribe to exist without a division 
into phratries, but not without the existence of 



i 4 THE PERUVIANS 

gentes. The three attributes of the tribe were, a 
particular territory, a common dialect, and a com- 
mon tribal worship. Since the tribe was formed 
of gentes or kins associating voluntarily, the latter 
stood on an equal footing, and all had an equal 
share in the tribal government. This was vested 
in a tribal council composed of delegates elected 
by the kins to represent them. The council of 
chiefs was the supreme authority from whose de- 
cisions there could be no appeal. 

With this knowledge of the social organization 
of Indian tribes, we are prepared to take up the 
study of that particular tribe which settled in 
Cuzco and developed into one of the most power- 
ful and progressive peoples of either continent. 



CHAPTER II 
The Incas 



The "Bolson" of Cnzeo.- — The great plateau of 
the Andes north of the Titicaca Basin, (which 
was the seat of the Piruas before the Eleventh 
Century,) is broken up here and there by valleys, 
or, to use the Spanish term, bolsojies, which means 
pockets. Among these, about the sixteenth paral- 
lel of south latitude, is the bolson of Cuzco,— a 
Quichua word meaning the navel, or center. It 
is about seventy miles in length and sixty miles in 
width, and is blessed with bracing uplands and 
sunny slopes, and with a climate on the whole like 
that of the south of France, and which is quite re- 
markable considering its altitude — 11,380 feet 



THE PERUVIANS 15 

above the level of the sea. It was, all things con- 
sidered, well adapted for the development of a 
people along the line of a progress, which, if not 
arrested, leads at last to civilization. 

Manco Capac. — To this bolson, in the year 
1240 of the Christian era, according to tradition, 
came a tribe of the Quichua stock, led by Manco 
Capac, or Manco the Ruler, and his wife, Mama 
Ocllo. They came from Peccari Tampu, which 
was "where, as seen from Cuzco, the sun appeared 
to rise." Tradition further avers that Manco Ca- 
pac and Mama Ocllo were brother and sister, 
both being children of the Sun. They bore with 
them a wand or wedge of gold, having been sent 
by the glorious Inti, (the Sun,) to instruct the 
simple tribes in that locality. Wherever the gold 
wand or wedge, upon being struck upon the 
ground, sank into the earth and disappeared for- 
ever, there it was decreed that Manco Capac 
should build his capital. It was in the bolson of 
Cuzco, where now stands the city of that name, 
that the wand disappeared in the earth, and there 
Manco Capac rested. And thence he and Mama 
Ocllo went their different ways in the bolson, 
"speaking to all people they met in the wilderness, 
and telling them how their father, the Sun, had 
sent them from heaven to be rulers and benefac- 
tors of the inhabitants of that land . . . and 
in pursuance of these commands they had come to 
bring them out of the forests and deserts to live in 
villages." Manco Capac instructed the men in 
agriculture and the arts, and gave them a religion 
and a social organization. Mama Ocllo taueht 



i6 THE PERUVIANS 

the women to* sew, to spin and to weave, and in- 
culcated in them modesty, grace and the domestic 
virtues. 

In this tradition we find another version of a 
story common to all primitive peoples, by which 
they seek to account for the beginning of their his- 
tory. Manco Capac is the Peruvian version of the 
Chinese Fohi, of the Hindoo Buddha, of the 
Egyptian Osiris, of the Mexican Quetzalcoatl, 
and of the Central American Votan. It is not 
without its historic value, however, for rightly in- 
terpreted it would seem to fix the time when the 
Indian tribe that subsequently developed in Cuz- 
co ceased to be nomadic, emerged from savagery, 
became sedentary, began the practice of agricul- 
ture, entered upon the lower status of barbarism, 
and took its earliest steps in human progress. 
Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo could not have 
been brother and sister and at the same time man 
and wife ; for under the system of social organiza- 
tion universal among the Indians, and which the 
tradition tells us Manco Capac himself established 
in Cuzco, the law was inflexible prohibiting mar- 
riage within the gens. And although the state- 
ment is made by the best authorities that the office 
of Inca was hereditary, and that the Inca was re- 
quired to marry his sister, that the oldest son of 
this marriage succeeded to the office — all in or- 
der that the blood of the Incas might be kept pure 
— the present writer is disinclined to believe it. 
Nor can he find any case in which proofs of it are 
adduced. Always the assertion is made without 



THE PERUVIANS 17 

any other authority than the bare assertion made 
by someone else. 

The tribal followers of Manco Capac were 
Sun worshipers and were totemistic. Garcilaso 
de la Vega, a Spanish writer of the Seventeenth 
Century, in whose veins the blood of Manco Ca- 
pac was supposed to flow, tells us that every Peru- 
vian deemed himself "dishonored unless descended 
from a fountain, river or lake, or even the sea ; or 
from a wild animal, such as a bear, lion, tiger, 
eagle, or the bird they call a condor, or from a 
mountain, cave, or forest." The totem of the 
gens to which Manco Capac belonged was evi- 
dently the Sun. 

Incidentally the tradition leads us to believe 
that the Cuzcans were from the first divided in- 
to two phratries. Garcilaso de la Vega, in relat- 
ing the tradition, tells us that those who followed 
Manco Capac settled Upper Cuzco, and those 
who followed Mama Ocllo, settled Lower Cuzco. 
He thus accounted for the two wards of the 
"city" at the time it was brought to the notice of 
the Europeans. These two wards acted separately 
in all religious observances and in social games. 
We learn from another source that the tribe was 
composed of twelve gentes, five belonging to one 
phratry and seven to the other. The tribal coun- 
cil was composed of twelve members. The tradi- 
tion implies that there were other tribes in the bol- 
son of Cuzco, but whether sedentary or nomadic 
does not appear. \ 

The site where Manco Capac rested was stra- 
tegically strong under the military system of the 



i8 THE PERUVIANS 

Indians, Its-military strength rested upon a lofty 
eminence toward the north, where now stands the 
Sacsahuaman, or "Fortress of Inca," still among 
the interesting features of 'the architectural re- 
mains of the ancient Peruvians. Modern archae- 
ologists are inclined to believe that the Sacsahuam- 
an is a part of the remains of a Pirua settlement 
and of nearly the same age as the ruins of Tia- 
huanuco in the Titicaca basin, which attest the ex- 
istence at one time of the Piruas and their prog- 
ress toward civilization. If this be true, we may 
readily suppose that the tribal followers of Manco 
Capac were invited to this spot by what was es- 
pecially attractive to them — walls behind which 
they could entrench themselves and withstand the 
assaults of surrounding tribes. 

Manco Capac appears in the tradition as the 
chief of his tribe — "Inca," he is called — -a Quichua 
word meaning chief or ruler. In the organization 
of every Indian tribe that has been closely studied 
the tribal war chief was elected by the tribal coun- 
cil and held his office during life or satisfactory 
behavior. When a chief died or was deposed, the 
council elected another to take his place. The 
chief was selected for merit and had to justify the 
choice by deeds of prowess on the field of battle. 
It was usual to select the war chief from one par- 
ticular gens, which may have been for totemistic 
reasons. There were in Cuzco (as in Tencchtit- 
lan, the seat of the Aztecs), two elective chiefs. 
One was the Capac Inca, or dispensing chief ; the 
other was the Uillac Umu, or speaking head, or 
the head which gives counsel. The first named 



THE PERUVIANS 19 

was the chief : military leader of the tribe. The 
latter was the chief of the tribal council and his 
functions were civil in character, though he is 
sometimes described as the chief priest of the tribal 
worship. Among all Indians who have become 
historic the war chief has attracted far more at- 
tention than his civil coadjutor. Of no Indian 
tribe do we possess any information regarding the 
civil chief, but the names of the military chiefs 
have' been preserved to us, and such prominence 
has been given to them in the case of the Aztecs 
and also of the Cuzcans that they have been in- 
vested with royal attributes and circumstances.* 

Successors of Manco Capac. — We are supposed 
to have the names of the successors of Manco Ca- 
pac, who were Sinchi Rocca, Lloque Yupanqui, 
and Mayta Capac in the Thirteenth Century, but 
we know very little of what they did or what prog- 
ress was made by the tribe under them. It is 
said, however, that, in the period of their official 
lives, the Cuzcans began to establish a tribal pre- 
dominance in the bolson, by "drawing in the sur- 
rounding tribes rather by peaceful means than by 



* The suggestion has never been made, we believe, but to 
the present writer it seems possible that Mama Ocllo was the 
Uilla Umti of the tribe at the time of its emergence from 
darkness and the beginning of its career as a sedentary tribe. 
This seems a plausible explanation of that portion of the 
tradition which relates to Mama Ocllo. The name may be 
feminine in its form, it is true. But the civil coadjutor of the 
war chief in Tenochtitlan was known as the Cihuacoatl, or 
snake woman. The wife of a war chief was never prominent 
in Indian history. Indeed Indian history has no Deborahs, 
Boadiceas, or other heroines. 



20 THE PERUVIANS 

conquest;" which probably means that they con- 
federated with the neighboring tribes for purposes 
of warfare defensive and offensive. They thus 
established the highest form of government known 
to the Indians at that time and laid the founda- 
tions of the future Incariate. The accession of 
Capac Yupanqui probably marks the completion 
of this confederation and the beginning of aggres- 
sive operations beyond the bolson. 

With the Indians, war was a very important 
matter. Every able-bodied man of the tribe, (ex- 
cepting the priests in some cases), was a warrior, 
trained to the use of arms from his infancy, and 
making fighting his business. He was accounted 
"idle" when no war was in progress. War was 
not, in the earlier periods of Indian history, waged 
for conquest of territory, for the Indians had no 
conception of ownership in lands or of expansion 
of territory. War was carried on for other pur- 
poses, however, of which subsistence was probably 
chief. Among tribes where human sacrifices were 
offered, war was waged at the demands of religion 
to secure captives for that purpose. Furthermore, 
only by warlike deeds on the battlefield was a 
warrior eligible to the office of chief; and when 
elected he was expected to prove the wisdom of 
the tribal choice by some especial act of bravery. 
He must, if possible, break his own record. And 
there were in many tribes certain warriors upon 
whom was conferred the honorary title of distin- 
guished braves, not by heredity, but by reason of 
the capture of prisoners in actual combat. In con- 
sequence of all this pretexts were eagerly sought 



THE PERUVIANS 21 

for going to war, and were frequently found in 
some real or fancied insult offered by one tribe to 
another. 

Capac Yupanqui, who succeeded Mayta Capac 
about the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, 
was successful in finding pretexts for war, and 
conquered the tribes of the west as far as the pass 
of Vilcanote, overlooking the Titicaca basin. In- 
ca Rocca, the next Inca, is said to have given his 
attention to internal improvements, which would 
seem to imply that the development of the Incar- 
iate had begun, and that Cuzco was becoming 
wealthy. Yahuar Huaccac, the seventh Inca, was 
unfortunate and the period of his rule was dis- 
astrous. His successor bore the name of the Pe- 
ruvian deity, Uira Cocha, and began a wonderful 
series of conquests which, within a century and a 
half, extended the Incariate over half of the west- 
ern part of South America. By the conquest of 
the Collas he annexed to the Cuzcan Incariate the 
whole of the Titicaca basin, once the seat of the 
Piruas, but at that time occupied by tribes of shep- 
herds being too high and cold for successful agri- 
culture. There were copper mines in the region 
capable of furnishing materials for weapons and 
tools for the Cuzcans superior to those to which 
they had been accustomed. As a result of these 
conquests a system of colonization began, to be 
subsequently developed into what were called 
mitimaeSy and these led to commercial enterprises 
whereby maize and cotton raised in one part of the 
country could be exchanged for the wool, potatoes, 
live-stock and copper of the higher regions. Uira 



22 THE PERUVIANS 

Cocha also annexed the tribes of the Yucay valley, 
and then turned his attention to the Chancas, who 
were at the head of a great confederation of tribes 
beyond the Apurimac river. But while his mili- 
tary operations in that direction were incomplete, 
he died. 

He was succeeded by Urco, who, being defeated 
by the Chancas, was deposed by the tribal council, 
thus furnishing evidence that the office of Inca 
was still elective and had not passed beyond the 
control of the council of the tribe. The Chancas 
came within sight of Cuzco and the decisive battle 
in the history of the Incariate was fought on the 
heights above that famous seat of the Incas. Ur- 
co's younger brother, Yupanqui, had there gather- 
ered warriors from all parts of the territory al- 
ready subject to the Cuzcans, and his brilliant 
victory over the Chancas gained for him the elec- 
tion to the office of Inca, from which his brother 
was deposed. He assumed, then or after his fur- 
ther victories, the title of Pachacutec, (he who 
changes the world). The memory of the great 
battle between the Cuzcans and the Chancas was 
fresh in the popular mind, a century and a half 
later, when the Europeans arrived in the country, 
and as they passed over this ancient battlefield, 
they saw the stuffed skins of the vanquished Chan- 
cas set up as memorials by the roadside. 

The "Mitimaes". — In the process of "changing 
the world, " Yupanqui Pachacutec subdued the 
Huancas, allies of the Chancas, and thus extended 
the Incariate to the shores of the Pacific. It was 
also in accordance with his programme of chang- 



THE PERUVIANS 23 

ing the world that the mitimaes were fully devel- 
oped and applied, as a stroke of policy on the part 
of the Inca and for the relief of the overcrowded 
portions of the Incariate. We are told by Pedro 
Cieza de Leon, in a book published in Seville in 
1553, that, "as soon as a province was conquered 
(by the Cuzcans), ten thousand to twelve thou- 
sand men were ordered to go there with their 
wives; but they were always sent to a country 
where the climate resembled that from whence 
they came. If they were natives of a cold prov- 
ince, they were sent to a cold one; if they came 
from a warm province they went to a warm one. 
These people were called mitimaes — which means 
Indians who have gone from one country to an- 
other." This account seems to have been verified 
by the discovery of colonists on the coast of Peru 
in the middle of the Nineteenth Century who still 
retained traditions concerning the villages of the 
Andes highlands whence their ancestors were 
transported as mitimaes. Only, these colonists 
from the cold highlands occupying the warm low- 
lands do not exhibit the great care for the hygiene 
of the people which Pedro Cieza de Leon would 
have us expect from the Inca. Undoubtedly, in 
many cases a war waged by the Cuzcans resulted 
in the extermination of a tribe. In such an event 
the depopulated Indian village was repeopled by 
Cuzcans, but voluntarily and because of the ad- 
vantage that was seen to be offered by such a 
course, and not in obedience to the edict of a 
despot. 
The Coast Valley Tribes.— The Pachacutec 



24 THE PERUVIANS 

was succeeded by Tupac Yupanqui, who com- 
pleted the subjugation of the coast valley tribes, 
and extended his conquests south as far as the 
River Maule, three hundred miles beyond the site 
of the present city of Santiago in Chile. In that 
region the tribes are said to have retained their 
autonomy after the ancient manner, and became 
allies of theCuzcans rather than their subjects. To 
the north of what is now the boundary between 
Peru and Ecuador dwelt tribes which were loose- 
ly attached members of a confederacy headed by 
the Caras of Quito. Their resistance to the war- 
riors of Tupac was brief, and he was able to make 
these tribes the military base of a great w T ar 
against Quito. In 1455 he won a great battle 
over the Caras. On the coast he extended his 
conquests to the Gulf of Guayaquil and returned 
to Cuzco in 1460. He died three years later, while 
in the midst of preparations to wipe Quito out of 
existence. 

The contest in the Ecuadorean Andes was be- 
tween peoples of the same degree of civilization 
and of nearly equal military strength. Tradition, 
which relates that the Caras reached this region 
about the Seventh Century of the Christian era, 
bringing with them a religion to which they were 
fanatically devoted and a tribal and military or- 
ganization which insured their becoming the dom- 
inant peoples of all that region, begins to gather 
in clearness six centuries later. The military 
chief of the tribe was then named the Shiri, and 
his seat was at Quito. Under the twelfth Shiri, 
more by treaties of confederation and alliance than 



THE PERUVIANS 25 

by conquests, a political system was established not 
unlike that of the Cuzcan Incariate, and embrac- 
ing the mountain fastnesses of the Ecuadorean 
Andes. In 1430 Hualcopo became Shiri, and up- 
on him was imposed the task of opposing the mili- 
tary operations of the Cuzcan Inca, Tupac Yu- 
panqui. It is alleged that the victory of Tupac 
Yupanqui, in 1455, left sixteen thousand Cara 
warriors dead upon the field of battle. Hualcopo 
retired first to Riobamba and then to a well forti- 
fied position further north and nearer to Quito. 
From this position Tupac Yupanqui was unable 
to drive him. He died in the same year that Tu- 
pac Yupanqui died, and was succeeded by Cacha, 
the fifteenth, and, as it proved, the last Shiri. He 
was a warrior and devoted the first years of his 
official life to recovering what his predecessor had 
lost to the Cuzcans. 

Huayna Capac was the successor of Tupac Yu- 
panqui. He was delayed in resuming his predeces- 
sor's campaigns against the Caras, by the necessity 
of conducting some military operations in the 
south. Returning thence in due time victorious, 
he devoted the remainder of his life to the con- 
quest of Quito. He first reduced to absolute obe- 
dience the tribes of the Gulf of Guayaquil, whom 
his predecessor had left half independent, and ex- 
tended his conquests on the northern shore nearly 
as far as the equator. Some of the tribes he ex- 
terminated. Having thus here and elsewhere se- 
cured lines of communication, he advanced against 
Quito. The Caras under Cacha fought stubborn- 
ly, but were overthrown in one battle after anoth- 



26 THE PERUVIANS 

er, and were finally defeated, and their Shiri was 
slain. Huayna Capac entered Quito in triumph. 
The Caranquis, a warlike people living north of 
Quito, were overwhelmed and exterminated. Tra- 
dition states that twenty-four thousand Caran- 
quis were massacred, and their bodies were thrown 
into the lake which now bears the name of Ya- 
huarcocha (the pool of blood). 

Size of Ancient Peru. — From about the year 
J475) what had before been the political system 
of the Caras, was an integral part of the Cuzcan 
Incariate, whose borders now extended nearly two 
thousand seven hundred miles along the Pacific, 
from the River Maule, about the thirty-eighth de- 
gree of south latitude, to about the sixth degree of 
north latitude; and perhaps some distance down 
the eastern slopes of the Andes. This gave it an 
average breadth of from three hundred to three 
hundred and fifty miles, and an area therefore of 
about eight hundred thousand square miles, or 
equal to that portion of the United States lying 
between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic. 
Throughout this vast extent of territory there ex- 
isted something like nationality, the only instance 
of its kind in America before the advent of the 
Europeans. And it is all the more remarkable as 
the only instance in the history of the world of 
the development of such a political system before 
that of any idea of private property. 

The national life was not homogeneous through- 
out the territory embraced within the Incariate. In 
the southern and older portion it was more so than 
in the more recently subjugated regions north of 



THE PERUVIANS 27 

the latitude of the site upon which the Spaniards 
subsequently established the city of Lima. The 
tribes north had been too recently conquered and 
brought within the political system to be counted 
upon to strengthen it. Garrisons were established 
among the coast tribes to keep them in subjection. 
The mountain tribes retained more or less auton- 
omy. The Caras of Quito were so loosely at- 
tached to the Incariate of Cuzco as to appear to 
be but awaiting an opportunity to regain their old- 
time independence. All this despite the fact that 
Huayna Capac adopted a conciliatory policy 
toward the conquered Quitos. He caused the 
Shiri to be buried with funeral honors, married 
his daughter, and spent the remainder of his life 
in Quito. 

In the south, from very early times, the con- 
quest by the Cuzcans of a tribe had been followed 
by the sacking of the temple and the removal of 
the tribal gods to Cuzco. This had served to 
create a pantheon at Cuzco, and to turn the 
thoughts of every Indian in that direction as to a 
religious, if not a political, capital, and it must in 
time have led to a regard for Cuzco as the politi- 
cal center of Peruvian nationality. The effort, 
furthermore, to introduce the Quichua language 
into every conquered tribe had succeeded in this 
region, even though it has failed repeatedly where 
it has been tried among peoples much farther ad- 
vanced in civilization. 



28 THE PERUVIANS 

CHAPTER III 
The " Civilivation " of the Peruvians 

The Golden Peruvian Age. — The times of 
Huayna Capac were undoubtedly the Golden Age 
of the Peruvians and present to best advantage 
the opportunity for our study of what is often very 
carelessly called their civilization. We would 
speak more accurately if we called it a study of 
their culture, or of their institutions. 

How much of the culture of the Peruvians was 
an inheritance from the Piruas it would be impos- 
sible to say. However, inasmuch as they were the 
only American aborigines that ever domesticated 
any other animal than the dog; and as they had 
produced several highly cultivated varieties of 
maize, and had developed the potato from its 
wild state and produced a great number of edible 
varieties, it is assumed that the process of this de- 
velopment must have begun considerably back of 
the time of Manco Capac. The llama was devel- 
oped from the same stock with the wild guanaco, 
and was in the time of Huayna Capac a very use- 
ful beast of burden, though never used for riding, 
nor for any other draft purposes than in plowing. 
It yielded a coarse wool also. It is, to-day, as 
thoroughly domesticated as the cow or sheep in 
other countries. The alpaca was developed from 
the stock of the wild vicunya for its yield of fine, 
sort wool, and it has actually become so thorough- 
ly domesticated that it is unable to live without 
man's care. Neither the llama nor the alpaca were 
cultivated for their milk. The guanaco and the 



THE PERUVIANS 29 

vicunya are, to-day, as wild as the chamois, and 
refuse to recognize any kinship with the llama and 
alpaca, and we are assured that such a complete 
revolution in the nature of these animals could 
only have taken place through centuries of culti- 
vation. 

So with regard to the cultivation of maize, cot- 
ton and the potato. The latter was introduced 
into Europe from Peru in the latter part of the 
Sixteenth Century and was very slow in coming 
into general favor there. The high state of per- 
fection to which the Peruvians brought it implies 
the lapse of considerable time since they began to 
work upon its wild form. 

In cultivating such vegetables the Peruvians 
practiced irrigation on a large scale and enriched 
their soil by the use of guano brought from the 
islands of the Pacific. As we have seen, it is this 
careful and methodical tillage of the soil, with the 
use of domesticated animals for other purposes 
than hunting, that marks the arrival of the Peru- 
vians at the middle period of barbarism. They 
must have reached this status at a much earlier 
date than any other known native people of either 
American continent. 

This cultivation of the soil must be called hor- 
ticulture rather than agriculture. Nature had not 
been profuse in the provision of arable land, and 
the Peruvians were of necessity exceedingly eco- 
nomical of what they had. They built their houses 
upon the rocky hills, and the deserts or sides of 
barren cliffs were used for burial-places in order 
that no spot of cultivable land should be used for 



30 THE PERUVIANS 

any other purpose than for the raising of such 
vegetable productions as they found useful for 
the support of life. By artificial means more cul- 
tivable lands were created. The mountain sides 
were terraced up for thousands of feet, and earth 
was brought in baskets on the shoulders of men 
and laid upon the bare rocks, until, by the patient 
labor of years, garden spots were made. And 
without any knowledge of iron, or of any labor- 
saving implements, they applied irrigation more 
successfully and more extensively than any other 
people. Many of their canals, reservoirs and ter- 
raced gardens have been allowed to crumble by 
their Spanish successors; yet modern Peru is liv- 
ing largely upon the half-ruined fragments of the 
mighty works wrought by aborigines who were 
in the middle status of barbarism. 

Private property in land did not exist. All be- 
longed to the tribe and was from time to time al- 
lotted to the kins. Each kin received a portion of 
land called a topu, which was sufficient to produce 
enough for the support of the members of the 
kin. All lands capable of being cultivated with- 
in easy reach of each settlement were divided in- 
to three parts. One was devoted to the Sun, or 
to the support of the tribal religion ; one was de- 
voted to the Inca, who was thus supported out of 
the common tribal property ; the third part was 
devoted to the people at large. Every person was 
obliged to work, all males being divided into 
classes according to age and strength, and suitable 
labor was assigned to each. Turns were taken at 
the irrigation works according to fixed rules. By 



THE PERUVIANS 31 

this community of interest in the products of toil 
store houses became necessary, and scarcity in one 
section was made up from the plenty in others. 

This horticulture was carried on by means of 
the crudest kind of implements. Iron mines were 
in existence in the Andes, but the Peruvians knew 
not how to work the ore. Their use of copper 
was as a stone, to be wrought as they had in their 
Stone Age worked flint and other stone into axes 
and spearheads. Their ploughs were made of hard 
wood, and were dragged through the ground by 
men, possibly sometimes by the llamas. Yet, with 
all their successful domestication of animals, the 
Peruvians knew no pastoral life. There was no 
such property in animals as that which rendered 
Abraham, the great patriarch of the book of Gen- 
esis, rich. The llamas and alpacas were the com- 
mon tribal possession, as was the land and appar- 
ently everything else. 

The Arts. — The Peruvians had developed the 
art of spinning cotton and the long hair of the 
alpaca to a high degree of excellence ; the dying of 
the yarn to perfection; and their skilful weaving 
of the figured cloths and tapestry furnished em- 
ployment to a great number of people, owing to 
the quality and variety of the fabrics for which 
there was demand. Many of the fabrics they pro- 
duced were of double cloth, showing the same col- 
ors and patterns on both sides. Some of them 
were decorated with embroidered designs, in 
which they made free use of feathers. They made 
a pleasing selection of the colors they used, and 
among the ornaments they applied were geometri- 



32 THE PERUVIANS 

cal figures repeated in long lines after the manner 
of the Greeks. Peculiar to the decorators of the 
Peruvian fabrics was the conventional treatment 
of the human figure, of birds, fishes and animals. 
It is somewhat curious that the beautiful flora of 
the country was altogether absent as an element of 
their decoration. They wove coarser cloth of 
llama wool, and still coarser fabrics of animal sin- 
ews and aloe fibre. 

The art of the weaver was influenced by the 
dress of the people. We are fortunate in having 
some description of the dress of the Inca, which 
probably differed from the dress of the common 
people only in the character of the ornaments it 
carried. This dress consisted of a shirt of cotton, 
a tunic of the same material dyed in patterns, and 
a mantle of fine vicunya wool woven and dyed. 
There were certain rich ornaments of gold by 
which some of these garments were adorned. The 
special insignia of the Inca's office consisted of the 
Bantu, or crimson fringe around the forehead, 
and the black and white wing feathers of the An- 
dean vulture, the two together forming what was 
known as the sacred head-dress. He carried in his 
hand usually something like a wand or mace, per- 
haps a weapon, to indicate his military character. 

In times of war the warriors wore head-dresses 
to designate the tribes to which they belonged. 
One tribe wore a puma's head; another adopted 
macaw feathers ; still another, deer's antlers ; still 
another, falcon's wing feathers. The Peruvian 
defensive weapons were the hualcanca, (shield), 
and the umachucu (helmet), and sometimes a 



THE PERUVIANS 33 

breastplate. The helmet usually took the form of 
a most hideous mask, imitating some ferocious 
beast, and was, perhaps, intended more for the 
purpose of terrifying the beholder than for pro- 
tecting the head of the wearer. Masks which have 
have been found in graves were probably such as 
had been worn in religious ceremonials. 

Pottery. — The art of pottery reached its high- 
est period among the Peruvians about the Four- 
teenth Century, when the designs exhibited a con- 
siderable play of fancy. Many of the vases made 
at this period were moulded into forms to repre- 
sent animals and vegetable products, evidently to 
be used as conopas, (household gods). Others 
were made in imitation of different portions of the 
human body ; or were made double, triple or quad- 
ruple, with a single neck branching from below. 
Some were intended to be interred with the dead. 
Others were for household use. Some exhibit an 
appreciation of the beautiful, while others are 
made purposely grotesque in form. That the 
Peruvians were not devoid of a sense of humor is 
evident from the number of vessels they made, 
from which the contents flowed out from a most 
unexpected portion, probably for the perpetration 
of a practical joke. Other vessels were so con- 
structed as to give forth a not unmusical sound, 
as the air or water passed through them. These 
were probably for some use in the temples. 

Metal Work. — Gold was plentiful and was ob- 
tained by the placer method. Silver was likewise 
obtained but not by mining. The beauty of these 
metals was appreciated and they were regarded as 



34 THE PERUVIANS 

belonging to the gods, or to the Inca, who was the 
child of the Sun. Innumerable dishes, vases and 
implements were made of these precious metals, as 
well as personal ornaments for the use of the Inca. 
These were probably made by hammering the 
metal into the required shape, though there is evi- 
dence that there were Peruvian workmen who had 
a knowledge of the difficult art of casting copper. 
Metal vessels have been discovered which, upon 
analysis, have been found to contain a combination 
of copper, tin, silver and gold. 

It is unfortunate that little of the gold and sil- 
ver work of the Peruvians has been preserved to 
exhibit the art of their gold and silversmiths. The 
Spanish conquerors valued the precious metals 
only as standards of wealth. Perhaps from the 
promptness with which they reduced to ingot all 
the various artistic productions which came into 
their hands, it is implied that they were not much 
more beautiful in the form in which they first re- 
ceived them. 

Metal workers were required for the produc- 
tion of the stamped or chased ceremonial breast- 
plates and chains in use at the religious feasts; 
also to fashion vessels for use in the temples and 
for the Inca; and to forge the arms of the war- 
riors. Among the last named was the chumpi, a. 
weapon peculiar to the Peruvians. It consisted of 
a long club, having a star-shaped head of copper. 
It. was heavy enough to require both hands to 
wield it. 

Architecture. — The interesting ruins found in 
Peru are divisible into two classes — those which 



THE PERUVIANS 35 

prove the existence of the Piruas, and those which 
are the remains of the later occupants of the land. 
The former merit somewhat particular notice be- 
cause of their relation to the buildings of the later 
period. They are to be found at Tiahuanuco, on 
a plain near Lake Titicaca, at an elevation of 12,- 
900 feet above the level of the Pacific. The site 
is sometimes called "The Thibet of the New 
World." The ruins cover an area of more than a 
square mile, and are the remains of many small 
and several large structures. The latter were 
built of very large stones, some of them twenty- 
five feet long, fourteen feet wide and more than 
six feet thick. They are of fine red sandstone, or 
of hard basalt, which must have been brought 
from some place at considerable distance from 
Tiahuanuco. These immense blocks of stone are 
fitted together so accurately that a knife-blade can 
scarcely be inserted between them. Neither mor- 
tar nor cement was used to keep the stones in 
place, but they were secured in some instances by 
mortised joints, or by copper dowels, traces of 
which still exist. The larger structures have been 
named the Temple, the Fortress, the Hall of 
Justice, and the Palace, from fancied resemblances 
to edifices for such purposes elsewhere. 

The so-called "Temple" forms a rectangle of 
338 by 445 feet, defined by lines of erect stones, 
partly shaped by art, standing fifteen feet apart. A 
I wall of uncut stones built between them supports a 
platform of earth eight feet above the surrounding 
level. The erect stones are panelled, the sides and 
ledges being slightly cut away, leaving projections 



36 THE PERUVIANS 

of about an inch and a half, as though intended to 
receive slabs. The Temple seems to be the most 
ancient of all the structures of Tiahuanuco. The 
stones composing it are rough and frayed by time 
and long exposure to the elements. Although 
constituting the most elaborate single monument 
among the ruins, and notwithstanding that the 
erect stones of its portal are the most striking of 
their kind, the structure shows signs of antiquity 
discoverable in none of its kindred monuments. Its 
vast area could never have been roofed over. It 
is not infrequently compared to the stone circles 
in Avebury (England), in Brittany and else- 
where, but there is no conclusive evidence of the 
purpose of the builders in either case. 

The fortress is an artificial mound of earth, 620 
feet long by 150 feet wide and 50 feet high, the 
sides being terraced. On its summit are sections 
of foundations of rectangular buildings. On its 
slopes lie blocks of stone sculptured with portions 
of elaborate designs. 

The so-called Hall of Justice consists of a rect- 
angle, 420 feet long by 370 feet wide, defined by 
a wall of cut stones supporting a platform of earth 
in which is enclosed a sunken area. What is called 
the Palace is a platform of well-cut blocks of 
stone, about 240 feet long by 160 feet wide, held 
together by means of copper clamps, with traces 
of an exterior corridor. On the eastern side of this 
stone platform there are three groups of seats cut 
in stone. One of the groups is divided into seven 
compartments. Between the central and side groups 
were monolithic doorways. One of these door- 



THE PERUVIANS 37 

ways stands at the entrance of an ancient burial 
mound, about three hundred feet long by sixty- 
seven feet wide and twenty feet high. The door- 
way (or gateway, as it is more generally called), 
is the most remarkable of the Tiahuanuco monu- 
ments. It is formed of a block of stone originally 
cut with precision, though now broken and some- 
what defaced. It is eighteen inches thick, thirteen 
feet wide and stands seven feet out of the ground. 
An opening is made in it four feet six inches high 
and two feet nine inches wide. Above this open- 
ing is a sculptured design, partly in low and part- 
ly in very high relief. On the reverse side of the 
doorway the design consists of a frieze and cor- 
nice. The designs on both sides appear to be sym- 
bolical of primitive Nature-worship. 

There are indications, chiefly in the partially 
sculptured stones on the sides of the so-called for- 
tress terrace, that the buildings at Tiahuanuco 
were never completed as they were intended to 
be. The erect stones are of admirable workman- 
ship; the long sections of foundations with piers 
and portions of stairways, the blocks of stone with 
I mouldings, cornices and niches, are cut with geo- 
metrical precision. The masses of stone partially 
hewn all imply some gigantic plan in the minds of 
I the builders, upon which the work was arrested by 
Isome cause not now known. The Titicaca Basin 
lis sterile and unfitted for the support of a large 
(population. It is consequently conjectured that 
|the buildings were intended for some religious or 
ceremonial purpose. 

Two styles are apparent in the architecture of 



38 THE PERUVIANS 

the later Peruvians as exhibited by the remainSr 
The earliest is imitative of the cyclopean work of 
the Piruas, though on a smaller scale. Walls are 
built of polygonal-shaped stones with rough sur- 
faces, but the stones are of reduced size. In the 
later style the stones are laid in regular courses. 
The ruins show pyramidal structures, usually ter- 
raced on the sides of natural elevations, and stone 
circles, probably open-air temples devoted to Sun 
worship, in shape symbolizing the Sun, and being 
provided with upright columns intended to show 
the time of the equinoxes ; buildings requiring the 
exercise of considerable engineering skill. Yet 
there is no evidence that any of the Peruvians, 
early or late, ever grasped the principle of the 
arch in building. A few openings in their walls, 
which appear to be arched at the top, may have 
been cut after the same was completed. They had 
no way of uniting timbers excepting by tying them 
with cords of aloe fibers. The sculptural orna- 
ments of the buildings assumed a conventional 
form, with crude attempts to represent the con- 
dor, the serpent and the face of the Sun, on the 
front walls of their temples and on the gateways 
to their cemeteries. Nor did they ever devise any 
covering for their buildings other than thatch. 
The roofs were sometimes peaked, even in a region 
where rains were infrequent. Nor were they able 
to build bridges across the ravines which inter- 
rupted their travel through the country, excepting 
those suspension bridges made of withes, and up- 
holding a single log or two, and swaying in the 
wind, or as any one crossed over. 



THE PERUVIANS 39 

This inability to build bridges would seem to 
contradict the story that is told of their magnifi- 
cent military roads leading out from Cuzco to all 
parts of the Incariate. As the Peruvians had no 
wheeled vehicles, and no draft animals, such roads 
as are described would be of no value to them. 
Modern travelers do not usually find any remains 
of these roads. Humboldt, indeed, observed them 
in northern Peru, but this was the last region to 
become subject to the Cuzcans, and that but a 
short time before the subjugation of the Peruvians 
to the Spaniards. Would it not have been strange 
for the Cuzcans to have built roads in this region 
when the other parts of the Incariate were desti- 
tute of them ? Whatever may have been seen by 
Humboldt in the way of roads must have been of 
European construction. That the Peruvians had 
a rapid and very efficient system of posts is not at 
all unlikely, inasmuch as running and carrying 
burdens were matters in which all Indians were 
especially trained, in the chase and in war, even 
in their nomadic state. The roads they required 
were trails worn into footpaths. 

The Temple of the Sun.— The Temple of the 
Sun at Cuzco was probably the greatest of their 
structures to come under the observation of Euro- 
peans. It was called Curicancha, a Quichua word 
meaning "court of gold." It was two hundred 
and ninety feet long by fifty-two feet wide, was 
enriched by the spoils of war for two centuries or 
more and was richly decorated with gold. The 
fortress of Sacsahuaman has been pronounced 
"without comparison the grandest monument of 



40 THE PERUVIANS 

an ancient civilization in the New World. Like 
the Pyramids and the Coliseum, it is imperisha- 
ble. " We have already seen that it is claimed by 
modern archaeologists to be the work of the Pir- 
uas. Early Spanish writers claimed to have heard 
the tradition that it was begun in the time of Yu- 
panqui Pachacutec and that it was unfinished in 
the time of Huayna Capac. It may be that in the 
time of these later Incas work was resumed upon 
the foundations laid by the Piruas, which led, as 
we have surmised, Manco Capac to lay the foun- 
dations of Cuzco at that place. The stones of the 
Sacsahuaman are unhewn, are often quite irregu- 
lar in shape and very unequal in size, and fit to- 
gether so as to retain their places without the use 
of mortar. Some of them are of huge size — four- 
teen to sixteen and a half feet in length, and from 
six to twelve feet in width. Tradition states that 
these huge stones were dragged to their places by 
twenty thousand Indians by means of stout ca- 
bles. One huge monolith was left to one side and 
not employed in the building, and is known as the 
"Tired Stone," because "it became tired and could 
not reach its place." Not unlikely the Peruvian 
workmen made use of the inclined plane in their 
transportation of immense stones. 

Other Great Ruins. — A study of some of the 
ruins in other parts of the country would be in- 
teresting. About eight degrees south of the equa- 
tor, in the valley of Chimu, about two miles from 
the coast, near a town founded by the Spaniards 
in 1535, and named Trujillo, are some ruins 
which are among the most remarkable in Peru. 



THE PERUVIANS 41 

The ruins "consist of a wilderness of walls, form- 
ing great enclosures, each containing a labyrinth 
of ruined dwellings and other edifices. " One of 
the enclosed spaces is usually called the "Palace," 
which, in view of what we have already seen, is a 
misnomer. The so-called "Palace" ruins embrace 
about thirty-two acres. The walls surrounding 
the enclosure are double and sufficiently heavy to 
resist the attacks of light artillery. These walls 
are at the base fifteen feet thick in some cases and 
gradually diminish as they rise, and are but three 
feet thick at the top. They are of varying height, 
the highest from thirty to forty feet. They are 
of adobe. 

Within the enclosure are three open spaces or 
courts of considerable size, and a number of cross- 
walls dividing the remaining space into smaller 
courts. Around the sides of each of these courts 
are the ruins of houses grouped with the utmost 
regularity. "Some are small as if for watchmen 
or people on guard ; others are relatively spacious, 
reaching the dimensions of twenty-five by fifteen 
feet inside the walls. These walls are usually 
about three feet thick and about twelve feet high. 
The roofs were not flat, but, as shown by the ga- 
bles of the various buildings, sharply pitched, so 
that although rain may not have been frequent, it 
was, nevertheless, necessary to provide for its oc- 
currence. Each apartment was completely sepa- 
rated from the next by partitions reaching to the 
very peak of the general roof. There are no traces 



42 THE PERUVIANS 

of windows, and light and air were admitted into 
the apartment only by the door."* 

The Chimu ruins are characterized by a num- 
ber of similar enclosures, some of them three or 
four times the size of the one above mentioned. 
And it is generally concluded that Chimu was the 
seat of a powerful tribe which finally succumbed 
to the Cuzcans, and that each of these enclosures 
was the home or communal residence of a gens of 
the tribe. The only adequate explanation of ar- 
chitecture, such as these ruins imply, is to be found 
in what we have seen of the social organization of 
the Indians. 

All the buildings at Chimu were protected, on 
one side at least, by a heavy wall, several miles of 
which were standing in the past century. From 
this wall at intervals cross-walls extended inward, 
thus enclosing large areas which were never built 
upon. These were evidently tracts devoted to 
gardens, cultivated by the common labor of the 
gens or tribe for the sustenance of such gens or 
tribe. Near one end of the so-called "Palace" en- 
closure is a court, containing a mound, which is 
deserving of especial mention. The mound is 
known as a huaca, which is a general name among 
the Peruvians for a sacred object of any kind. 
The construction of this mound, like many other 
artificial mounds found in Chimu and in other 
p#rts of Peru, is curious. It consists of a large 
group of rooms filled with clay. In one of the 
Chimu huacas large numbers of gold vessels have 

<E. G. Squier. 



THE PERUVIANS 43 

been found, and it is not improbable that in others 
treasures are concealed, though it is supposed that 
the majority of huacas are burial-mounds. Burial 
in huacas was the custom of the coast tribes gener- 
ally in disposing of their dead. In the central re- 
gions the bodies of the dead were frequently 
mummified. Huacas abound in the coast region 
and are often of great size, having an area at the 
base, in some cases, of more than seven acres, and 
containing masses of human bodies arranged in 
strata showing that the huacas have been used as 
burial-places for a long series of years. Some of 
the huacas are surmounted by chulpas (towers), 
which constitute another characteristic architec- 
tural feature of Peru. Treasure hunters have pen- 
etrated the sides of the most famous of the huacas, 
which consist of rooms, and have found numerous 
large, painted chambers built in successive dimin- 
ishing stages, ascended by zigzag stairways and 
stuccoed over and painted in bright colors. It is 
supposed that the Cuzcans, after the conquest of 
the tribe making use of such a pyramidal struc- 
ture, filled up its chambers with earth and recast 
the edifice with a thick layer of adobe. 

The Chimu people, as were all the coast tribes 
of Peru, were supposed to be advanced in the art 
of the potter and in that of the metal worker, 
and also in their architectural decoration. They 
ornamented the inner walls of their edifices with 
stucco in patterns. They also, in laying up their 
adobe walls, permitted some of the bricks to pro- 
ject from the surface of the wall in geometrical 
patterns. Because of these, one of the passage- 



44 THE PERUVIANS 

ways at Chimu, about fifty feet wide and twice 
that in length, is called the Hall of the Ara- 
besques. The patterns resemble those found upon 
the textile fabrics of the Peruvians. 

A short distance south of where the Spaniards 
built in the Sixteenth Century the city of Lima, 
are to be found the ruins of Pachacamac, where 
once stood the sanctuary of the deity of that name. 
A huaca at this place is supposed to have been re- 
garded with such sacred awe that it was the ob- 
ject of pilgrimages for thousands of years from all 
parts of the country. It was evidently consid- 
ered a great privilege to be buried there. It at 
least furnishes evidence that the spot has been the 
abode of man for a long time. The temple has 
passed through many changes in its long history. 
The structure of a very early period was destroyed 
and its ruins covered a cemetery once lying at its 
foot. A large temple was erected covering the 
same site and new terraces were added in front. 
A temple was standing there in the early half of 
the Sixteenth Century, as we shall have occasion 
to see in a subsequent chapter. 

Religion. — The Peruvians were never mono- 
theistic. They were primarily Sun worshipers, 
but they also worshiped the moon, the stars, (es- 
pecially Venus,) and dedicated temples to thun- 
der and lightning, to the rainbow, and to various 
objects in Nature — the elements, the winds, the 
earth, the air, great mountains and rivers, which 
impressed them by their sublimity and power, and 
which were regarded as inferior deities of local, or, 
it might be, of individual interest. For the Peru- 



THE PERUVIANS 45 

vians had their household gods, (conopas), and 
each kin had its tutelary deity, who, under their 
totemistic system, stood in the relation of ancestor 
to it. In addition to all these, in the case of the 
conquest of a tribe, the tribal gods were among 
the spoils of war, and the removal of these local 
deities to Cuzco in a manner constituted that place 
a religious community. 

It is sometimes alleged that the religion of the 
Peruvians was advancing toward the acknowledg- 
ment of a Supreme God, the Creator and Ruler of 
the Universe. But all that they held regarding 
the deity, known as Uira Cocha, in no way inter- 
fered with the worship paid by them to the other 
deities. Uira Cocha was sometimes known as II- 
latiosi, which means Eternal Light, (and might 
apply to the Sun) ; sometimes as Pachacamac, 
which means Ruler of the World. He was de- 
scribed as a creator of all living things. Temples 
were dedicated to him, and the festival of Capac 
Raymi was held in his honor in the middle of the 
year, which, in a country south of the equator, 
answers to our midwinter — December 22 to Jan- 
uary 22 — at the period of the summer solstice. 
Capac Raymi was a thanksgiving for the harvest 
and one of four great festivals having reference 
to the Sun. Praises were offered to the sun, 
moon and stars; there were solemn dances from 
the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and feasting and 
rejoicing for many days. Animal sacrifices were 
offered. Some writers declare, while others as 
positively deny, that a child or maiden was sacri- 
ficed at this feast. This was scarcely possible in 



46 THE PERUVIANS 

the Golden Age of which we are writing, for the 
Cuzcans are said to have prohibited such sacrifices 
in the tribes which they conquered. It was fur- 
thermore contrary to the religious ideas of the Pe- 
ruvians, whose sacred ceremonies were for thanks- 
giving and not for expiation. Animals were of- 
fered in sacrifice, as has been said, and some of 
the writers, who assert that human sacrifices were 
offered, may have been misled by the words used 
for young and adult llamas, and by the fact that 
the 5-ouths offering these animals gave them their 
owti names. 

This religion, with its complicated ritual and 
numerous festival ceremonies, presupposes some 
sort of religious order qualified to perform all of 
its religious functions. The religion of the In- 
dians is usually known as "medicine," and what 
answers to the priests of other religions, is the 
shaman or "medicine-man." This is because he 
performs by incantation or religious rite whatever 
is done for the relief of the sick. It is also usual 
to connect his office in some way with that of the 
tribal chiefs and to regard the head chief as high 
priest. We are told, however, that the Uillac 
Umu was the high priest of the Cuzcans, and that 
under him there were various officers charged 
with different details of the wonderfully compli- 
cated system of worship. 

One class of u medicine-men," we are told, 
made it their special business to bring lovers to- 
gether. They may have been wizards, however, 
rather than recognized officers of the Peruvian 
religious system, for their work seems to have 



THE PERUVIANS 47 

been very similar to that of the African voodou. 
They prepared talismans made from the roots of 
certain plants, or from feathers, and introduced 
them secretly, if possible, into the clothes or beds 
of those whose inclinations were to be won. Some- 
times hairs of the person whose love was sought 
were used, or else highly colored birds from the 
forest, or their feathers only, were employed. 
They also sold to the lovers a stone which they 
said could be found only in places that had been 
struck by lightning — mostly black agates, with 
white veins — and these medicine-men prepared in- 
fallible and irresistible love-potions. 

Precisely what healing arts were practiced by 
the medicine-men in Peru is unknown. But one 
of the most curious things revealed by search 
among the remains of the ancient Peruvians are a 
number of skulls upon which trephining has been 
practiced. This was in some cases upon the skulls 
of the dead, for the purpose, doubtless, of obtain- 
ing amulets and charms, always in demand among 
superstitious primitive people. Later on trephin- 
ing was practiced upon those whose lives were 
deemed useless, that is, upon living captives — for 
what purpose is a puzzling question, but possibly 
in search of knowledge of the spiritual or mental 
parts of man, or for purposes of experiment. The 
reader will remember that it is only in relatively 
modern times that, as a very bold experiment, 
trephining has been practiced among the most ad- 
vanced of civilized races. 

The elaborate religion of the Peruvians seems 
not to have inculcated a very high moral sense 



48 THE PERUVIANS 

among them, according to our ideas. In earlier times 
the union of the sexes was voluntary, unregulated, 
save by the general Indian law which prohibited 
marriage within the kin or outside of the tribe. It 
was acompanied by barbarous usages, many of 
which survive among some of the uncivilized 
tribes of South America to the present day. The 
later marriages seem to have been founded upon 
no sentiment of love, and women were treated 
among them as slaves. Upon the women devolved 
much of the agricultural work and all of the do- 
mestic duties. The "Sun virgins, ,, often referred 
to as being maintained in the temples and as indi- 
cating a high regard for moral purity among the 
Peruvians, were really maintained as concubines 
for the Incas, or for the priests, and made the 
temples nurseries of immorality rather than teach- 
ers of morality. It was one of the functions of 
the kin to regulate the marriage of all its mem- 
bers. The law that there must be no intermar- 
riages within the kin is conclusive as to the im- 
possibility of the Inca being compelled to marry 
his sister, though he might have married his niece. 
The Peruvians had no laws prohibiting polygamy. 
Their marriage ceremony was a very simple one. 

That the Peruvians believed in spiritual exis- 
tence and in the resurrection of the dead is evi- 
denced by their practice of embalming their dead. 
They buried with the dead various broken arti- 
cles and often face-masks, which had been used in 
war or in religious dances. 

The amautes, or learned, men were undoubted- 
ly connected with the religion of the Peruvians, 



THE PERUVIANS 49 

and their principal duty it was to preserve the tra- 
ditions of the tribes. It is said there were yara- 
vecs (bards) who reduced these traditions to 
rhythmical sentences, or to poetical form, and re- 
cited them at their public festivals. This consti- 
tuted a sort of "literature" for a people who had 
no knowledge of letters, as we shall see. More 
properly, they constituted the folk lore of the peo- 
ple. 

It is said that the Peruvians had many musi- 
cal instruments, and certain it is that dancing was 
an important element of their religious ceremo- 
nies. And inasmuch as, in 1781, a Spanish judge 
prohibited the performance of certain Indian 
dramas, it is supposed that the ancient Peru- 
vians had something like dramatic representations. 
They may easily have been quite equal to the me- 
diaeval miracle plays in England. One of their 
dramas is said to survive to this time under the 
title of "Ollantay" and is based upon events in the 
time of Yupanqui Pachacutec. In its present form 
it shows that Spanish editors and playwrights 
have been at work upon it. Many Indian games 
still in vogue in Peru may be traced back to the 
greater religious festivals of the Peruvians. 

The ftuipus. — The Peruvians, as we have thus 
described them, had reached the highest degree of 
culture of any people on either continent of the 
Western Hemisphere. But in one respect they 
fell far short of the earliest stage of civilization; 
short indeed of the Aztecs, who had a system of 
picture-writing by which to record events and con- 
vey their ideas to others. The Peruvians had not 



50 THE PERUVIANS 

advanced to the practice of the art of writing. It 
is said that there are a few pictographs to be found 
among the remains of their temples, but they were 
probably no more than symbols of some of the 
mysteries of their religion. They brought, how- 
ever, the cord system of mnemonics to the greatest 
perfection of any known people. The ropes by 
which they kept their records were called quipus, 
(from the Quichua word quipu, meaning a knot). 
They were often of great length and of varied 
thickness. From the main ropes depended smaller 
ones, distinguished by colors appropriate to the 
subjects of which the knots treated: white for sil- 
ver, yellow for gold, red for soldiers, green for 
corn, parti-colored when the subject treated of re- 
quired sub-division. The dependent cords had 
other cords hanging from them upon which excep- 
tions were noted. 

In their system of numeration one knot meant 
ten ; a double knot one hundred ; two single knots, 
side by side, meant twenty ; two double knots, two 
hundred. The position of the knots on the string 
and their forms were significant, so that the quipus 
were capable of conveying other information be- 
sides that of numbers. Yet the art of reading the 
quipus must have been a difficult one to acquire. 
It was practiced by special functionaries called 
quipucamayocuna, or knot-officers. These appear 
to have been able to expound their own records 
only, and when quipus were sent from one tribe 
to another, the tribal quipucamayocuna was com- 
pelled to travel with it to read and explain its 
meaning. It seems, therefore, that the quipus were 



THE PERUVIANS 51 

simply aids to memory, "about on a par with Rob- 
inson Crusoe's notched calendar, or the chalked 
tally of an illiterate tapster." They had no value 
as historical records. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Breaking Up of the Incariate 

The Incariate War. — Huayna Capac died in 
Quito in 1525, and thus was furnished the oppor- 
tunity for which the Charas of Quito had 
been looking to reassert their independence. 
According to some accounts Huayna Capac 
disposed of the two grand divisions of the Incar- 
iate according to his own ideas of how things 
should be. The northern portion he gave to Ata- 
hualpa, a son born to him by the daughter of the 
chief who had been defeated and slain in the final 
capture of the northern tribe. To Huascar, a 
son by a legitimate Cuzcan wife, he bequeathed 
the southerly portion of the Incariate, but without 
any intention of disrupting the Incariate, propos- 
ing that the paramount authority should reside in 
the Cuzcan Inca. It is in accordance with such 
an understanding of the events following upon the 
death of Huayna Capac, that the subsequent his- 
tory of the Incariate is usually written. Yet it 
would have been utterly at variance with Indian 
social customs for Huayna Capac thus to dispose of 
tribal offices or territorial government ; it seems far 
more likely that Atahualpa was elected chief of 
the Quitus by the tribal council, and that the tri- 



52 THE PERUVIANS 

bal council in Cuzco elected Huascar (or, as he is 
also called, Inti-Cusi-Hualpa) Inca; and that 
with the election the Quitus expressed a decided 
determination to take advantage of the death of 
Huayna Capac and reopen the war with the Cuz- 
cans. Thus is explained the war which broke out 
almost immediately. It was a war to determine 
where lay the balance of power. Undoubtedly this 
question would have been settled in favor of the 
Quitus, had it not been for the advent of the Eu- 
ropeans and the subjugation of both Quitus and 
Cuzcans to the crown of Spain. 

The struggle is alleged to have been at first for 
the predominance in the Incariate. It is said that 
Atahualpa made overtures to Huascar to have his 
authority recognized within a limited jurisdiction, 
and that these overtures were answered to the ef- 
fect that Huascar could demand no less than im- 
mediate and unconditional obedience on the part 
of the northern tribes. In the first campaign the 
northern territory was made the seat of war and 
the Cuzcans assumed the aggressive. Both sides 
suffered severely, but the final advantage lay with 
the Quitus, and the Cuzcans were forced to re- 
tire in the direction of Caxamarca. In a subse- 
quent campaign the Quitus under Chalcauchima 
and Quizquiz, noted war-chiefs, took the aggres- 
sive, poured into the northern coast regions of the 
Incariate, ascended the mountains;, defeated the 
Cuzcans in a battle near Caxamarca, and fol- 
lowed them as they retreated south of the Cerro de 
Pasco. A decisive battle took place at Cuzco in 



THE PERUVIANS 53 

which the Cuzcans were defeated and scattered 
and Huascar was made a prisoner. 

Atahualpa was at Tumibamba, near the site of 
the present city of Cuenca, w T hen he received the 
news that his warriors had not only gained a de- 
cisive victory over the Cuzcans, but had also the 
person of the Inca in their hands. He started at 
once for Caxamarca, the first place of importance 
on the great plateau south of the southern bound- 
ary of what is now the South American state of 
Ecuador. He was accompanied by a small body 
of warriors. It was while he was waiting near 
Caxamarca that he heard the wonderful news that 
two hundred bearded white men had landed on 
the coast at Tumbez, on the southern side of the 
Gulf of Guayaquil. They wore garments and 
bore arms different from those of the Indians, and 
they were carried over the ground at a terrific 
speed upon the backs of beasts much larger than 
the llama or the alpaca. 

Some years previously, that is to say, in the 
year 1527, a ship carrying some of these strangers 
had landed at various points along the Pacific 
coast, to beg provisions and to ask questions re- 
garding the character of the land. Two of the 
strangers had been left behind when the ship final- 
ly departed, and were taken to the interior of the 
country. What otherwise became of them no one 
knows. They must, however, have given to the 
Quitan leaders much information regarding the 
character and purposes of the white men. At all 
events, Atahualpa appears by his actions to have 
realized that the power and importance of the 



54 THE PERUVIANS 

Europeans was greater than was indicated by their 
meagre numbers. He sent one of his brothers, 
(according to the usual accounts), to the white 
men to assure them of his good-will and to inquire 
as to their wishes and intentions. He received in 
reply a message from the white men to the effect 
that their leader appreciated Atahualpa's kind as- 
surances of regard and that the white men would 
proceed at once to Caxamarca and pay their re- 
spects to him in person. And thus began the se- 
ries of events which resulted in the subjugation of 
the Peruvians to the Spaniards. 



CHAPTER V 
The Spanish Conquest 

About Pizarro. — In order to give an intelligi- 
ble account of the conquest of Peru, we must give 
our attention to the Europeans who now began 
to take the dominant position in affairs. It is 
necessary, furthermore, to go back, at least to that 
dramatic incident in the history of discovery and 
exploration in the new world, when Balboa stood 
upon a mountain peak on the Isthmus of Darien 
and looked out upon the great western ocean, and 
then took possession thereof in the name of the 
King of Spain. Among the followers of Balboa 
on that occasion was Francisco Pizarro, a native 
o'f Trujillo in Estremadura, Spain. Trained to 
a soldier's life under "The Great Captain," Gon- 
salvo de Cordova, he became a colonist in the New 
World in 1509. He was among those who set- 



I 



THE PERUVIANS 55 

tied in Panama after Balboa's discovery, and there 
he heard the reports brought back in 1522 by Pas- 
cual de Andogoya of wealthy lands lying far to 
the south. Andogoya had entertained a scheme 
for the exploration and conquest of this rich south- 
ern country, but, being obliged by ill-health to 
abandon it, he turned it over to a tri-partnership 
consisting of Pizarro and Almagro (two daring 
adventurers), and a priest named Luque, who was 
the moneyed man of the concern. A small vessel 
was purchased at Panama, and, in 1524, Pizarro 
made a voyage down the coast which brought no 
results. In a second voyage, eighteen months la- 
ter, he and his crew were about to turn back dis- 
couraged, when their pilot, who had been sent 
ahead, returned to them and reported that he had 
crossed the equator and had fallen in with a 
large sea-going raft from further south, laden 
with cloth and various articles of silver, all of in- 
telligent workmanship, and managed by crews 
who wore clothing, in striking contrast to the 
naked savages whom they had seen elsewhere 
along the coast. 

These Indians were reported to come from 
Tumbez, which was about two hundred miles 
further south. Almagro thereupon turned back 
with his ship to Panama to secure reinforcements, 
while Pizarro pushed on and landed his men upon 
the island of Gallo, where he waited for months 
for Almagro's return. Things reached a pretty 
low ebb on the island of Gallo, but no sooner did 
Almagro return with provisions, than Pizarro set 
out with his few men, and, twenty days later, ar- 



56 THE PERUVIANS 

rived in Tumbez. Here he found the reports he 
had received fully confirmed. He explored the 
coast for two hundred miles further south, and in 
the autumn of 1527 returned to Panama, taking 
with him some of the natives of Tumbez and some 
other products of the country. 

Borrowing in Panama what money he could, 
Pizarro went to Spain in 1528, and there reported 
to the Spanish king what he had discovered on the 
western coast of South America. At the court of 
the Spanish monarch he met Hernando Cortes, 
who had marvellous tales to tell of what had be- 
fallen him in Mexico but a few years before, and 
so Pizarro's tales of further wealth to be obtained 
in Peru were readily believed at the Spanish court. 
To Pizarro was granted the right of discovery and 
conquest in Peru, (or New Castile, as it was de- 
termined to call it), and to exercise therein func- 
tions little inferior to those of a viceroy. Thus 
commissioned, Pizarro hastened back to Panama, 
taking with him his brothers, Hernando, Juan and 
Gonzalo, and a small body of fighting men from 
Spain. 

From Panama, in December, 153 1, he sailed 
south upon the Pacific, upon his third, and, as it 
proved, his final voyage of discovery and conquest, 
leaving Almagro to follow later with reinforce- 
ments. The small army landed among the coast 
tribes of Ecuador, where Pizarro had the good 
fortune to find a store of gold and emeralds to be 
sent back to Almagro for the latter's encourage- 
ment. Down the Ecuadorean coast the little 
army of Spaniards advanced, until it reached the 



THE PERUVIANS 57 

Gulf of Guayaquil. Upon the island of Puna the 
fierce inhabitants were overcome with great 
slaughter, and there the little army of Pizarro was 
joined by a reinforcement of men and horses under 
the command of Hernando de Soto. 

Pizarro's Campaign of Conquest. — Thus rein- 
forced Pizarro felt strong enough to cross over to 
Tumbez, and begin an actual campaign for the 
conquest of the rich country of Peru. From Tum- 
bez he marched south to Paita, and that admirable 
strategic point he made the base of his military op- 
erations. He established a garrison there under 
the name of San Miguel, and formed the plan, 
which had undoubtedly been suggested to him by 
what he had learned from Hernando Cortes, of 
his method of procedure in the conquest of Mexi- 
co. 

With one hundred and two foot soldiers, sixty- 
two horses, and two small cannon, he left San 
Miguel on the 24th of September, 1532, and 
marched south two hundred miles along the coast 
plain, to a point opposite Caxamarca; and then 
ascended the mountains by one of the Peruvian 
trails, being received in a friendly manner by the 
natives whom the army encountered. Already 
Pizarro had acquired information regarding Ata- 
hualpa and Huascar, and the victories won by the 
warriors of the former over those of the latter. He 
had received the message of Atahualpa and had 
replied as we have seen. He was now to receive 
Titu Atauchi (said to be Atahualpa's brother), 
with presents and a message to the effect that the 
Quitu chief desired friendship with the white 



58 THE PERUVIANS 

men. Pizarro and his army were in fact being 
supplied with provisions by Atahualpa's orders. 
Under such happy circumstances the Spaniards ad- 
vanced and entered Caxamarca on Friday, the 
15th of November, 1532. 

The Spaniards found at Caxamarca, according 
to the best accounts, a place capable of accommo- 
dating ten thousand inhabitants. The houses were 
built of sun-dried brick (adobe), with roofs of 
thatch or timber. There was a Sun temple and a 
house for the virgins of the Sun, who were charged 
with the care of the sacred fire. And in one quar- 
ter was a triangular court of immense size, sur- 
rounded by low buildings, consisting of capacious 
halls with wide doors or openings communicating 
with the court. These were supposed by the Span- 
iards to be the barracks of the garrison of the In- 
carial army. More likely they composed the com- 
munal residence of one of the kins or gentes of the 
tribe originally occupying Caxamarca. The en- 
tire place was deserted, and the Spaniards took 
possession by permission of Atahualpa, and made 
themselves at home in what they were pleased to 
call the barracks. 

Imprisonment of Atahualpa. — Atahualpa and 
his warriors — several thousand "Indians in 
quilted cotton doublets, with bucklers of stiff hide, 
long bronze-pointed lances and copper-headed 
clubs (chumpis), as well as bows, slings and las- 
sos (bolas), in the use of which these warriors 
were expert" — occupied a magnificent military po- 
sition on rising ground some two miles distant 
across a mountain stream. The curiosity of these 



THE PERUVIANS 59 

Indians in regard to the approaching Europeans 
must have triumphed over their fears. The image 
of Uira Cocha in the minds of the Peruvians was 
that of a bearded white man. Such was Pizarro 
and to that type conformed most of his followers. 
They might all be regarded as children of the 
Sun. The early hero-god of every Indian tribe 
was usually a white man with flowing beard. It 
is often argued that this is but a form of the dawn- 
myth — a veiled parable of the morning light, 
bringing joy to the world and then vanishing, to 
return from the east with the dawn. Horses were 
a novelty to the Peruvians, as we have seen. Their 
beasts of burden were never used for riding pur- 
poses. Fire arms and weapons of iron were also 
new to them. 

A visit was made by a detachment of Spanish 
horsemen, under Hernando de Soto and Fernando 
Pizarro, to Atahualpa — a visit marked by the ex- 
treme of ceremonious politeness on both sides; 
and this served to increase the curiosity and su- 
perstitious dread of the Indians. The Spaniards on 
their part fully realized the perils in which they 
were placed, and Pizarro determined that there 
should be no delay in carrying out his scheme for 
getting possession of Atahualpa's person. 

To those who have read of the Conquest of 
Mexico, the account of what Pizarro did in Peru 
must seem as though the whole drama of the con- 
quest of the latter place was but a reiteration of 
what had gone on in Mexico about a decade be- 
fore. There was this notable difference, however : 
Pizarro was a man of no education and was in- 



6o THE PERUVIANS 

ferior in many ways to Hernando Cortes, the hero 
of the Mexican campaigns. There was a total 
lack of originality in the scheme of Pizarro for 
hastening the conquest of the country. Cortes 
had arrested the one whom he mistook for the 
Emperor of Mexico, hoping thereby to rule the 
country through him. Pizarro would arrest him 
whom he mistook for a claimant for the imperial 
throne of Peru. In carrying out his programme, 
however, Pizarro was far less subtle and far more 
brutal than Cortes. 

Atahualpa was invited to be the guest of the 
Spanish Captain on the morrow of the latter's ar- 
rival in Caxamarca. Curiosity prompted the Qui- 
tu to accept and he came followed by other In- 
dians actuated by the same motive. Much fine 
writing has been expended upon descriptions of 
the gorgeousness of Atahualpa's apparel and his 
train. He may have assumed some personal finery 
on this occasion, but his most probable ornaments 
marking his rank, or that to which he aspired, 
were a head-dress of feathers and large ear pend- 
ants. The latter extended the lobes of his ears 
and thus entitled him and all Peruvian warriors of 
rank to the nickname given them by the Spaniards 
of origones (big ears). The wand, or baton, 
which Indian war-chiefs held upon the battle- 
field, may well have been mistaken by the Span- 
iards, in the hands of Atahualpa, for an imperial 
scef>ter. 

It was in accord with the spirit of the age that 
Pizarro should make an effort for the conversion 
to Christianity of the Indian chief. Once get him 



THE PERUVIANS 61 

to accept the tenets of Christianity and the Indian 
would find that one of the obligations of Chris- 
tianity on his part would be to accept the political 
theory that he belonged of right to the King of 
Spain. So a priest (and no Spanish army in those 
days was without its priest — which may not have 
seemed at all strange to Atahualpa, for medicine 
men usually accompanied the Indian warriors on 
their campaigns), approached the Indian war- 
chief, and, w^ith the aid of an interpreter, deliv- 
ered a long discourse, in which he sought to ex- 
plain to Atahualpa the abstruse principles of the 
Christian religion. Atahualpa listened, but de- 
clined to make at once a change in the religion in 
which he and his people had been trained ; and, as 
the story goes, when the book, to which the priest 
had frequently referred, was shown to him, find- 
ing nothing remarkable in it, after his first feel- 
ings of curiosity had been gratified, he threw it on 
the ground with contempt. 

His action, and it may have been more particu- 
larly his general manner, furnished Pizarro with 
a pretext for setting his plans in motion, and he 
gave the signal for the onslaught. With guns 
and swords the Spaniards slew many of their 
guests, drove the remaining Indians from Caxa- 
marca, and scattered all of Atahualpa's army. The 
number of the slain has been variously estimated 
at from two to ten thousand. Even the lesser 
number may have been an exaggeration. In the 
massacre Pizarro was copying Cortes at Cho- 
lula. Atahualpa was taken into custody and his 



62 THE PERUVIANS 

life was spared that he might be made of further 
service to the Spaniards. 

That his followers should have been defeated 
and slaughtered does not appear to have affected 
Atahualpa as seriously as that he should himself 
be deprived of his liberty. For the first few weeks 
Pizarro treated him with kindness. But he took 
every precaution to prevent the escape or the res- 
cue of his prisoner. Any Indian would chafe un- 
der confinement. Supposing Atahualpa to have 
been a war-chief, his defeat and imprisonment 
were especially irksome because of the effect they 
must have upon his reputation with his tribe. To 
the Indian captive, taken in war, the lot of sla- 
very was appointed. 

The Offering of Gold. — Perhaps there were sur- 
viving traditions among the Quitus, of the offer- 
ing of such captives in sacrifice, and there was no 
knowing what the white men might do. So Ata- 
hualpa made the astonishing offer for his freedom 
which is the most prominent feature of the con- 
quest of Peru. He would, within two months, 
fill for Pizarro the room in which he was then 
standing, with silver and gold to the height to 
which he was able to reach when standing on tip- 
toe, if the Spaniards would release him from cap- 
tivity. The room was said to be twenty-two feet 
long and seventeen feet wide, which would give a 
cubic measure of 2766 feet. The offer was ac- 
cepted by Pizarro, though it was subsequently 
modified by allowing that the metals need not be 
reduced to ingot to fill the room, but would be ac- 
cepted in the forms in which they appeared. We 



THE PERUVIANS 63 

have already seen that the Indians treated gold 
and silver as stones and not as metals, and what- 
ever shape they formed them into was by means 
of hammering. 

From far and near came burdens of the precious 
metals, and the room began to fill up with the 
most curious pieces of gold and silver. But it came 
in more slowly than Atahualpa had expected, or 
than Pizarro had hoped, and in June, 1533, the 
stipulated amount had not been fully made up. 
The Peruvians may not have had clear ideas re- 
garding individual property, but the priests had 
very distinct ideas as to what was due to the gods, 
and so they dismantled the temples and hid their 
treasures until the impending crisis should pass. 

Meanwhile Hernando Pizarro and a body of 
men — twenty horsemen and half a dozen arque- 
busiers — made a trip to the famous temple of Pa- 
chacamac, four hundred miles distant, in order 
that they might despoil it. They found Pachamac 
of considerable population and of substantially 
built edifices. The temple was a vast stone build- 
ing or pile of buildings, grouped around a conical 
hill, seeming more like a fortress than a religious 
establishment. The guardians of the sacred edi- 
fice at first refused admittance to the Spaniards, 
but the latter forced the entrance and wound their 
way along the passage-way leading to the summit 
of the mount, where was the sanctuary. Here 
their progress was again opposed by the Indian 
priests, when an earthquake shock was felt, and 
the natives fled in alarm. Pizarro tore open the 
door, entered the sacred place with his party, and 



64 THE PERUVIANS 

found it a place of sacrifice. Standing in one cor- 
ner was a grotesque looking wooden idol, which 
had been used as an oracle by the priests of the 
temple. This the Spaniards delayed not to de- 
molish and in its place they erected a large cross. 

The natives, seeing that the wrath of the gods, 
as manifested by the earthquake, was not visited 
upon the Spaniards, inclined to the belief that they 
must in some way be in the enjoyment of the 
special favor of the gods. So they came in to be- 
come better acquainted with the strangers, and to 
offer their allegiance. But Pizarro found that 
the wily priests, who had been advised in advance 
that his mission to Pachacamac was not so much 
for the purpose of converting the heathen as for 
securing the property of the gods, had sent most of 
the treasure away. The rest was found, after 
diligent search, buried in the ground. This proved 
considerable, however, amounting to nearly eighty 
thousand castellanos of gold and with that Her- 
nando Pizarro had to be content. He was able to 
return to Caxamarca unmolested by the Indians. 

Three soldiers were subsequently sent to Cuzco 
to hurry forward the treasure from that rich 
place. But they behaved with so little discretion 
that they endangered their own lives and the suc- 
cess of their mission. Hernando de Soto and an- 
other officer had to be sent to repair the mischief. 
On the 3d of May, 1533, Pizarro determined to 
melt down and distribute the gold and silver that 
had already arrived. Another large instalment ar- 
rived on the 14th of June. Altogether the official- 
ly recorded amount realized was 3,933,000 ducats 



THE PERUVIANS 65 

of gold and 672,670 ducats of silver, or £4,500,- 
000 sterling ($21,870,000) in modern money. 
One-fifth was sent to the royal treasury. The re- 
mainder was divided among the followers of Pi- 
zarro, giving to each man enough to make him 
rich for life. 

At once the money market became glutted. 
What the soldiers did not spend in gambling they 
paid out lavishly for the necessities of life and, in 
a land where iron was unknown, the rough soldiers 
had their horses shod with silver and went to like 
foolish extravagances. The price and purchasing 
value of silver went down at once in Peru, and it 
was not long before the money markets of Europe 
were seriously affected by the influx of silver from 
the mines of the New World. 

Whatever bonds had held together the govern- 
ment of the Quichua tribes was broken, and every 
chief and every subjected tribe acted independent- 
ly. Huascar was murdered at the command of 
Atahualpa, as was generally supposed. Quizquiz 
tried to defend Cuzco, but with no apparent suc- 
cess. Manco Capac Yupanqui, apparently elected 
Inca in the place of Huascar, surrendered to the 
Spaniards, evidently seeking their protection. 

Atahualpa Garroted. — Pizarro basely failed to 
keep his promise regarding the release of Atahual- 
pa. The Indian spent the time of his captivity in 
learning the Spanish language and some of the 
Spanish gambling games. He learned also some- 
thing about Spanish character, which must have 
increased his confidence in his own good judgment 
in rejecting the religion of the white men offered 



66 THE PERUVIANS 

him before his arrest. After the payment of the 
ransom, it became a problem which the coarse, un- 
educated Pizarro was incapable of solving, what 
to do with him. Large bodies of troops were on 
their way from Cuzco, undoubtedly determined 
to expel the invaders, who had by this time shown 
that they were either very human, or else very un- 
friendly gods. Pizarro was afraid to release Ata- 
hualpa, lest he add to the strength of the rising 
forces of the enemy. But, if he kept him a pris- 
oner, the gathering hosts of warriors, regarded by 
the Spaniards as Atahualpa's partisans, would 
fight for his release. The execution of the pris- 
oner was proposed as a measure of good policy. It 
was determined upon by Pizarro, by Almagro 
(who had reinforced the Spaniards in Peru in 
April, 1533), and by the priest who had failed to 
convert Atahualpa the day of his arrest. 

On the 29th of August, 1533, Atahualpa was 
subjected to the mockery of a trial and adjudged 
guilty of the murder of Huascar, of conspiring 
against the Spaniards, of polygamy and of idola- 
try, and was sentenced to death. He was prom- 
ised, however, that this death should be by stran- 
gulation rather than by burning, if he would ab- 
jure his religion and be baptized into the Chris- 
tian faith. He was thereupon baptized, taking the 
name of Juan. Then, in the great square of Cax- 
amarca, he was garroted. His body was after- 
wards burned. This dark tragedy should not be 
related without noting that sixteen Spaniards pro- 
tested against it. One of them, Hernando de 
Soto, was absent from Caxamarca at the time, but 



THE PERUVIANS 67 

declared, when he learned what had been done, 
that if he had been present he would have pre- 
vented the execution. He soon afterwards with- 
drew from an enterprise which was stained with 
so much blood, sought adventure in the northern 
continent, explored Florida, and discovered the 
Mississippi river. 

It is related that Pizarro put a younger brother 
of Atahualpa in his place, Toparca by name, and 
that the high-spirited youth refused to serve and 
died of humiliation within two months. We can 
readily understand that it was impossible for any 
one to serve without the election of the tribal 
council, and that Toparco was placed in an em- 
barrassing position by the ignorance of the Span- 
ish leader. He would especially dread the punish- 
ment that would be meted out to him by his tribe 
for any assumption of authority on his part. 

Pizarro's Continued Cruelty. — Soon after the 
execution of Atahualpa, Pizarro evacuated Caxa- 
marca, resolving to strike at Cuzco, while the in- 
ter-tribal war was in progress. On his march 
thither he was attacked in the rear by Titu Atau- 
chi, the brother of Atahualpa, who had been a 
messenger to Pizarro's camp, and eight Spaniards 
were taken prisoners and carried back to Caxa- 
marca. The captors exercised a wise discrimina- 
tion with these prisoners, treating with kindness 
two of them, who had been among those who had 
protested against the execution of Atahualpa, and 
strangling, upon the spot where Atahualpa had 
suffered death, one who had acted as clerk of the 
court which had adjudged him guilty. The great- 



68 THE PERUVIANS 

er part of the Spanish army under Pizarro and Al- 
magro took up a position on the plain of Sacsa- 
huamana, near Cuzco, and there another savage 
act was committed by Pizarro. Chalcachima, a 
war chief, was arrested and charged with having 
caused the attack of Titu Atauchi, and was 
burned alive in expiation of his alleged crime. 

Pizarro was opposed by Quizquiz and his war- 
riors, but the incredible speed of the Spanish cav- 
alry gave him every advantage. The Spanish lost 
heavily in the neighborhood. But Quizquiz was 
in a hostile country, where the tribes had been par- 
tisans of Huascar, and were inclined to regard fa- 
vorably the murderers of Atahualpa. Fancying 
that the inter-tribal war was for the purpose of 
settling a disputed succession, such as he was ac- 
customed to in Europe, Pizarro favored Manco 
Capac Yupanqui, treated him as the legitimate 
Inca, and assured him that the sole object of the 
march of the Spaniards from Caxamarca was to 
crush the enemies of the Cuzcan Inca. Quizquiz 
was finally obliged to retire before the combined 
forces of Spaniards and Cuzcans, leaving the way 
open for the Spaniards. 

Pizarro Enters Cuzco. — On the 15th of No- 
vember, 1533, Pizarro entered Cuzco. Under his 
protection Manco Capac Yupanqui was formally 
installed as Inca, "with all the ancient rites." The 
new Inca set out with all the warriors he could 
raise, including some Spaniards, in pursuit of 
Quizquiz, overtook and defeated him some dis- 
tance north of Cuzco. After another repulse, in 
an attempt to cut off Pizarro's communication 



THE PERUVIANS 69 

with the sea, Quizquiz made his way back to the 
north. The tribes in the central portion of what 
had been the Incariate found that the Spaniards 
regarded their conquest of the country as complete 
and the land as their own. 

A Spanish municipal government was estab- 
lished in Cuzco the following March ; the Domin- 
icans received the Temple of the Sun as a monas- 
tery; other buildings were taken to serve as 
churches, private dwellings and barracks, and the 
Indian pueblo was transformed into a Spanish 
city. Tombs, temples and private residences were 
carefully searched for gold. The natives were 
impressed into military service for the Spaniards, 
and it was not long before the Peruvians found 
themselves the slaves of those whom they had sup- 
posed were their allies and protectors. 

Pizarro gave his attention to matters of admin- 
istration in his conquered country. He estab- 
lished the city of Lima to be his capital ; strength- 
ened San Miguel, and built a city which he named 
after his own birthplace, Trujillo. These three 
cities were so located as to give him control of 
the entire country. But scarcely had this govern- 
ment of the Conqueror been established than civil 
war broke out among the Spaniards. Almagro 
had entertained no very cordial feelings toward 
Pizarro since his return from Spain with rank and 
assured fortune for himself, and with the Bish- 
opric of Tumbez for Padre Luque, but with 
scanty provision for his other partner in the en- 
terprise. 

His feeling of bitterness was increased when he 



70 THE PERUVIANS 

and his men were left out of the division of the 
spoils at Caxamarca, notwithstanding he had ar- 
rived before the ransom of Atahualpa was fully 
made up. And now that the conquest of the coun- 
try was considered complete, he was coolly in- 
formed that he was to be governor of lands begin- 
ning two hundred and seventy leagues south of 
Tumbez ! So he was forced to set out for the con- 
quest of his province, and, after toilsome journeys, 
he reached the fertile valleys of Chile. But he 
found little gold there and so returned and tried 
to establish a claim to the city of Cuzco. It was 
before the war had begun between Almagro and 
the Pizarros for the possession of Cuzco, and the 
territories which naturally went with it, that the 
Peruvians, under Manco Capac Yupanqui, re- 
volted, and, with the knowledge they had gained 
of Spanish war methods, attempted to throw T off 
the yoke imposed upon them by the higher civiliza- 
tion. 

Hernando, Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro with 
two hundred Spaniards occupied Cuzco. The rest 
of the Spaniards were scattered. Francisco Pizar- 
ro was in Lima. Almagro was in Chile. 
Manco Capac Yupanqui gathered all the native 
warriors in the neighborhood and besieged the city 
in 1536 and maintained the siege for several 
months. During that time there were numbers of 
fights in which both sides lost heavily and in one 
Qf them Juan Pizarro lost his life. The advantage 
was mostly with the Spaniards. As the planting 
season approached (September), it became neces- 
sary for the Indians to raise the siege, and Manco 



THE PERUVIANS 71 

Capac Yupanqui retired in the direction of Vilca- 
bamba and encountered Almagro on his return 
from Chile to assert his claim to Cuzco. A battle 
ensued in which the Peruvians suffered another 
defeat and slaughter. 

Manco Capac Yupanqui established himself in 
the mountain fastnesses of Vilcabamba. With sto- 
ical resignation, characteristic of the Indians, he 
and his followers, in these almost inaccessible de- 
files of the mountains north of Cuzco, made the 
best of their sad situation, and left the conquerors 
to fight among themselves over the division of the 
spoils which had, as though by a miracle, fallen 
into their hands. 

Death of Pizarro. — In the bitter feuds among 
the Spaniards, Cuzco was seized by Almagro and 
subsequently recovered by the Pizarros. Alma- 
gro being then captured, was tried for sedition 
and summarily executed in July, 1538. In June, 
three years later, Francisco Pizarro, whom the 
King of Spain had created a Marquis, was assas- 
sinated by Almagro's half-breed son, who was 
proclaimed Governor of Peru. But his day was 
a short one, for the King of Spain sent out a 
judge, Vaca de Castro by name, to advise with 
Pizarro concerning the government. As he ar- 
rived subsequent to Pizarro's assassination, he as- 
sumed, as had been provided for, the government. 
In 1542 he defeated young Almagro and had him 
beheaded in the great square at Cuzco. 

In the meantime the conquest had been ex- 
tended into the Ecuadorean region. With the 
death of Atahualpa and the defeat of Quizquiz, 



72 THE PERUVIANS 

the tribes of that region had been left without a 
leader, having already been drained of their able- 
bodied warriors. But the survivors of the various 
tribes fought among themselves. Some of them 
applied to the Spaniards, as Manco Capac Yupan- 
qui had done, for protection and assistance, and 
with a similar result. Sebastian de Benalcazar 
led a force of two hundred Spaniards from Pizar- 
ro's garrison at San Miguel, and, being assisted 
by various Indian tribes, after a terrible fight at 
Tiocajas, took possession of Quito in December, 
-^SB- Benalcazar was disappointed in his search 
for gold. He therefore divided the country, after 
the manner of the feudal system to which he had 
been accustomed in Europe, enslaved the Indians 
and compelled them to pay tribute ; and then pro- 
ceeded to other scenes of conquest beyond the ter- 
ritories in which we are at present interested. Qui- 
to subsequently became the scene of disorders simi- 
lar to those which marked the history of Cuzco 
under the rule of the conquerors. With the con- 
quest of the Chilean region under Pedro de Val- 
divia subsequent to 15 40 we have little to do, as 
that conquest was of Araucanians rather than of 
the Peruvians. 

Vaca de Castro was succeeded in 1544 by 
Blasco Nunez Vela, who was sent to Peru as 
governor, charged with the enforcement . of the 
"New Laws" promulgated for the immediate 
abolishment of the slavery of the Indians. Against 
the arbitrary enforcement of these laws the Span- 
iards rose in rebellion, and the Viceroy was slain 
in battle near Quito in January, 1546. He was 



THE PERUVIANS 73 

succeeded by Pedro de la Gasca, an ecclesiastic, an 
inquisitor and a shrewd politician. He repealed 
so much of the "New Laws" as required the im- 
mediate abolition of slavery. This for a while 
propitiated the Spaniards, but after a time a re- 
bellion broke out, in which Gonzalo Pizarro ("the 
last of the Pizarros") was leader. It gathered 
strength for a while, but was eventually put 
down. 

Gonzalo Pizarro was executed in 1548. Casca 
returned to Spain in 1550. Peru w T as left in con- 
fusion and the governments ad interim had rebel- 
lion after rebellion to encounter, until the arrival, 
in June, 1550, of Don Andres Hurtado de Men- 
doza, Marquis of Canete, who will ever be known 
as the "good Viceroy" of Peru. His goodness con- 
sisted in his efforts to alleviate the lot of the na- 
tives. He dared not venture to give them all the 
rights guaranteed by the Spanish "New Laws", 
but he made the Spaniards understand that their 
more outrageous forms of oppressing the Indians 
must cease. The native chiefs were allowed to ex- 
ercise jurisdiction as magistrates under a modifica- 
tion of the Spanish system. 



CHAPTER VI 
The Peruvians Under Spanish Rule 

Viceroy Government. — In 1558 Manco Capac 
Yupanqui died in his mountain fastness, and was 
succeeded in his shadowy office by his son, Sayri 
Tupac, who continued with the remnant of his 



74 THE PERUVIANS 

tribe in the mountains. The Viceroy induced him 
finally to come to Lima to swear allegiance to the 
Spanish government, and accept a pension and es- 
tates in the Yucay valley. As he signed the doc- 
uments by which this arrangement was made, he 
lifted up the golden fringe of the table cover be- 
fore him and said: "All this cloth and its fringe 
were once mine: and now they give me a thread 
of it for my sustenance and that of all my house." 
He sank into a deep melancholy and died within 
two years. 

The "good Viceroy" was in office for five years, 
and it was several years before the King of Spain 
found a successor to his liking. He was Don 
Francisco de Toledo, and he arrived in Peru in 
1569. His first task was to destroy the surviving 
remnant of the Incarial office. The Spaniards had 
not previously interfered with the celebration by 
the Indians of their annual festivals with the an- 
cient solemnities ; and the Viceroy went to Cuzco 
to be present at one of these festal celebrations, 
determined that it should be the last. Titu Cusi 
Yupanqui, the brother of Sayri Tupac, was bear- 
ing the tile of Inca in Vilcabamba. He sent to the 
new Viceroy to beg that ministers of religion 
might be sent to him. A friar was sent and al- 
most immediately Titu Cusi sickened and died. 
The superstitious Indians held the friar responsi- 
ble for Titu Cusi's death, rose up against him and 
killed him. Tupac Amaru, a boy, was proclaimed 
Inca in succession to Titu Cusi. 

A Famous Execution. — A pretext was found 
in these events by the Viceroy for the arrest of Tu- 



THE PERUVIANS 75 

pac Amaru and others, who were brought to Cuz- 
co, tried for murder and sentenced to death. Tu- 
pac Amaru was wholly innocent of the crime laid 
at his door, and his conduct at his execution gave 
to that scene the semblance of the martyrdom of 
a saint. He was instructed in religion by two 
monks for several days, and was then taken to 
the scaffold erected in the great square at Cuzco, 
to be beheaded. Dense crowds of people covered 
the open spaces in the city and the hills above the 
town, and these attested their grief and horror 
in such manner as to affect even the hard-hearted 
Spanish soldiers and cause them to hesitate. The 
boy himself was perfectly calm. He raised his 
right arm, and, in the profound silence which fol- 
lowed this gesture, he spoke a few simple words of 
resignation. The scene was so heartrending as 
to make it impossible for the Spaniards to act the 
cruel part assigned to them. 

Led by the Bishop of Cuzco and the heads of 
the monasteries, a deputation rushed to the Vice- 
roy, threw themselves upon their knees before him, 
and begged that the youth might be sent to Spain 
to be judged by the King. The hard-hearted Vice- 
roy sent the chief alguacil to carry out the sen- 
tence, and it was executed while the great bell of 
the cathedral was tolled and the popular protest 
was expressed in deafening shouts of horror and 
grief. By the Viceroy's orders the head of the 
youth was stuck upon a pike beside his scaffold. 
Looking out of his window in the moonlight that 
night, a Spanish soldier saw thousands of Indians 
prostrate before the livid head, and the Viceroy 



76 THE PERUVIANS 

directed that it be taken down and placed with 
the body, which was interred in a chapel of the 
cathedral, after solemn funeral rites performed by 
the Bishop and his ecclesiastical staff. But there 
was no spirit left in the Indians for rebellion and 
no centre around which they could rally. The 
celebration of Indian rites was forbidden and 
every effort was made to remove whatever might 
serve to remind the Indians of their former state. 

Peruvians Reduced to Vassalage. — The Peru- 
vians were now scattered throughout the land to 
the number of eight millions. They had been re- 
duced to vassalage and crowded to the wall by the 
Spaniards from the time of Pizarro's earliest oc- 
cupation. The system of slavery pursued in Peru 
was that known as encomicndas, whereby the In- 
dians were assigned by the crown to certain Span- 
iards, theoretically to be given religious instruc- 
tion, but virtually to be done with as the Span- 
iards pleased, so that encomienda was a euphemism 
for the most outrageous form of slavery, as cruel 
and destructive as any that had ever been known. 
The system was founded upon the assumption that 
the King of Spain had an absolute proprietary- 
right over the natives of the countries which were 
his by conquest, and could make assignments of 
their services to his Christian subjects, according 
to the rank and wealth of the latter. The assign- 
ment of Indians in encomienda was called a re- 
partimiento. The person upon whom the encomi- 
enda was bestowed w T as called an encomiendero. 
The repartimiento belonged to the estate of the 



THE PERUVIANS 77 

encomiendero and was sold with it or descended to 
the heirs thereof. 

It was the purpose of the so-called "New 
Laws" to mitigate the evils resulting from this 
system. They entirely abolished in distinct terms 
the "personal services of the Indians," and for- 
bade the selling of encomiendas or their descent 
by inheritance. Blasco Nunez de Vaca was un- 
able to enforce the "New Laws," and was de- 
feated and slain in the war precipitated by his 
efforts on their behalf. Pedro de la Gasca prom- 
ised to recommend their repeal and had authority 
to suspend them and never dared to enforce them. 
When a peremptory order came from Spain that 
enforced Indian labor must cease, he kept the or- 
der secret until he could resign the government 
and leave the country, and let his successor bear 
the brunt of promulgating the order. The "good 
Viceroy," Mendoza, as we have seen, did much 
to alleviate the lot of the Indians, and checked 
some of the more outrageous forms of oppression 
practiced upon them. 

Don Francisco de Toledo put forth what is 
known as the "Libro de Tasas," or Book of Rules, 
which was the basis of the Spanish colonial sys- 
tem for the following two centuries. Though 
supposed to be founded in part on the unwritten 
law of the Incariate, the laws embraced in this 
system were far from favorable to the Indians. 
The office of corregidor (district magistrate) was 
created and his rule was made substantially abso- 
lute so far as the Indians were concerned ; though 
in the effort made to keep up part of the supposed 



78 THE PERUVIANS 

political organization of the Incariate, the Indian 
village chiefs administered justice and exercised 
some power. 

But tribute or poll tax was exacted from every 
male Indian between the ages of eighteen and fif- 
ty. One-seventh of the Indians were required to 
work for their masters, and might be sent to the 
nearer towns to be engaged by any one who re- 
quired their services. Those in the neighborhood 
of the mines were compelled to furnish the labor 
necessary to work them, and, when the lot fell 
upon any Indian thus to work in the mines, he 
might never hope to return to the free life he had 
formerly enjoyed. All this was within the pro- 
vision of the "Libro de Tasas." In the practical 
application of the laws they were made far more 
oppressive. Kidnapping was reduced to a system. 
Hundreds of the Peruvians were hunted down 
and carried off to work on farms, in factories, or 
in mines. Often all the male adults of a village 
were dragged off to the mines, leaving only wom- 
en and children to till the fields. 

Some of the decrees of the Spanish government 
for the amelioration of the condition of these In- 
dians imply the extent of the oppression to which 
they were subjected. Such, for example, was the 
decree of 1584, intended to secure for those em- 
ployed in mines "regular hours of repose, and 
some time to breathe the fresh air on the surface 
of the earth." The Indians died in droves 
under the cruel treatment they received. In a 
century the number working in the Potosi mines 
was reduced from eleven thousand to sixteen hun- 



THE PERUVIANS 79 

dred. In non-mining districts the Indians were 
reduced to one-tenth the original number, while 
among the warm valleys of the coast region they 
practically died out and their place was taken by 
negro slaves. 

Conquered, enslaved and crushed beneath the 
heel of the most despotic form of government ever 
devised, the Peruvians lived under Spanish rule 
for two centuries and a half, and joined with the 
Creoles in the struggle for independence from 
Spain and in the establishment of a republic. In 
the meantime they had given to Europe potatoes, 
cassava, ipecacuanha and quinine. 

It was an important event in the history of 
Peru that the sovereign virtues of the Peruvian 
bark became known in the Seventeenth Century, 
and the manner of the discovery deserves mention. 
The wife of one of the viceroys, the Countess of 
Chinchon, had a stubborn attack of malarial fever 
and the physicians of Lima were unable to cure 
her. A Jesuit missionary had sent to the rector of 
the Jesuit College in Lima some fragments of a 
bark which had been given to him, the missionary, 
by an Indian. The vice-queen was dosed with this 
after the manner of the Indians, the fever was 
quickly broken and she was restored to health. 
Linnaeus, the botanist, called the genus to which 
the tree belongs, after the Viceroy, chinchona. 

The New "Inca" of 1781.— One other event in 
the history of the Peruvians is worthy of men- 
tion. The Peruvians refused to believe that the 
last of their Incas had perished in the person of 
Tupac Amaru. For more than two centuries they 



80 THE PERUVIANS 

cherished the tradition common to many peoples, 
(witness the German belief respecting Frederick 
Barbarossa), that he had only retired to another 
kingdom beyond the mountains, from which he 
would return in his own good time to sweep the 
oppressors of his race from the land. In 1781 the 
slumbering hope found expression in an insurrec- 
tion headed by Condorcanqui, who, though a mes- 
tizo, was descended in some manner from the fam- 
ily of Huayna Capac. He boldly proclaimed 
himself the long-lost Tupac Amaru, "the child of 
the Sun and Inca of Peru." With mad enthu- 
siasm the Indians hailed him as their destined de- 
liverer, and he was able to advance at the head of 
a considerable army to the walls of Cuzco, where 
he declared that it was his purpose to blot out the 
memory of the white men and re-establish the In- 
cariate in the City of the Sun. After a bloody 
struggle, lasting for trwo years, the Spaniards re- 
gained the mastery, and consigned the insurgent 
leader and all his family to an ignominous and 
barbarous death. As Condorcanqui passed along 
the streets of Cuzco to the place of his execution, 
the Indians prostrated themselves in the dust at 
sight of him, thus testifying their veneration for 
the last representative of those whom they had 
been taught for many generations to believe were 
indeed the Children of the Sun. 



THE PERUVIANS 81 

CHAPTER VII 
The Evolution of Modern Peru 

More About Spanish Rule. — The Spanish con- 
querors of Peru unquestionably brought some 
benefits to the country to compensate for the in- 
stitutions which they destroyed. They brought a 
system of government and jurisprudence, which, 
while suffering by comparison with Anglo-Saxon 
institutions with which we are familiar, was far in 
advance of anything the former occupants of the 
land would have attained to for many a century 
if they had been left to work out their own prog- 
ress toward civilization. They brought the let- 
ters, the religion and the civilization of the Latin 
peoples of Europe, and they introduced into the 
country new and valuable animals, grains and 
fruits hitherto unknown to the Peruvians. 

The conquest was followed by what is usually 
known as the Colonial period, extending over 
nearly three centuries. The early portion of this 
period was marked, as we have seen, by quarrels 
among the conquerors, which should hardly be 
dignified by the name of civil wars. Hew much 
the progress of the country was set back by these 
quarrels, which ended in the violent death of near- 
ly every one of the original actors in the drama, 
it would be impossible to say. Nor was the sys- 
tem of government to which the disturbed rule of 
the conquerors gave place calculated to advance 
the highest interests of the governed and produce 
in them the best type of civilization. 

The policy of Spain in regard to her newly-ac- 



82 THE PERUVIANS 

quired provinces in the Western Hemisphere was 
not precisely what we would understand as colo- 
nial. It w T as a system derived from the Romans 
and not from the Teutons, as in the case of Great 
Britain's colonies. Spain's Trans-Atlantic prov- 
inces — consisting of Mexico in the northern con- 
tinent, and Peru, Chile and Buenos Ayres in the 
southern continent, all contributing to form the 
vast empire, whose sovereign was enabled thereby 
to call himself "King of Spain and the Indies" — 
were governed by codes of laws distinct from the 
laws of Spain and intended to suit what were re- 
garded as the special exigencies of the provinces. 
The Council of the Indies. — The Casa de Con- 
tratacion, (literally House of Contracts, and an- 
swering in Spain very nearly to the English India 
House), was established in 1503, for the purpose 
of directing the course of commerce and trade be- 
tween Spain and the colonies in the west. It 
served as a court of judicature and had jurisdic- 
tion over the conduct of all persons connected 
with trade between Spain and the Americas. In 
15 1 1 the Consejo de las Indias, (Council of the 
Indies), was instituted and proved in some re- 
spects the most peculiar governing body known to 
history. Gradually it usurped exclusive control 
of the Spanish possessions in the New World. It 
enacted all the laws and regulations for the gov- 
ernment of Spanish America, and made or con- 
firmed all appointments for that country, civil, 
military and even ecclesiastical. It gave its orders 
and instructions to all the higher officials of the 
provinces in America, and these had to be explicit- 



THE PERUVIANS 83 

ly obeyed. It served as a final court of appeal in 
all cases involving important questions arising in 
the New World, and, though the King reserved 
the right of veto over all its proceedings, the right 
was seldom exercised. 

The laws enacted by the Consejo had little or 
no regard for the needs of Spanish subjects in the 
New World, and, although involved in contra- 
dictions, they were arbitrarily enforced. The 
Consejo soon became forgetful that it owed any 
obligations to the natives of the countries in Amer- 
ica, or that those people were any other than beasts 
of burden bound to eternal vassalage to the Span- 
ish people quite as much as \p the Spanish mon- 
arch. 

In no respect was the legislation of the Consejo 
de las Indias more disastrous than in its dealing 
with the subject of the slavery of the Indians, al- 
ready referred to in a previous chapter. The sys- 
tem of repartimientos and encomiendas had been 
established before the conquest of Peru. In fact 
the spoils of the conquest, consisting of territorial 
possessions, precious metals and repartimientos, 
were to be divided up between the conquerors in 
accordance with the terms of the agreement made 
between Pizarro, Almagro and Padre Luque. It 
prevailed therefore in New Castile or Peru imme- 
diately after the conquest, as a matter of course. 
The system arose under Columbus while he was 
governor in the West Indies. Originally lands 
were apportioned to Spanish colonists who had 
authority to require a specified Indian cacique 
and his people to cultivate them. This constituted 



84 THE PERUVIANS 

a repartimiento. Later an incomienda of Indians 
might be granted wholly independently of a grant 
of lands. The kings of Spain, being constantly be- 
set by suitors for royal favors, and some of them 
having nothing else to give, gave encomiendas. 
Some of the recipients of these gifts farmed out 
the encomiendas to others and became themselves 
absentee proprietors of rights of property in hu- 
man beings. Thus the condition of the Indians 
was changed from serfdom to slavery. 

In the depths of misery into which the Indians 
were thus cast, a friend was raised up to them in 
the person of Bartolomeo de las Casas, a Domin- 
ican friar, who had lived in the Indies, and who 
had a thorough knowledge of the public affairs of 
America. He had at one time held an estate with 
Indian serfs, or slaves, and had liberated them in 
obedience to his convictions of the injustice done 
to them, and his voice was raised in defence of the 
Indians. He wrote his celebrated book, "The De- 
struction of the Indians," followed by "Twenty 
Reasons' ' why the Indians should not be given to 
the Spaniards in encomienda. It was due to his 
preaching, writing and personal influence that 
laws were adopted by the Consejo de las Indias 
intended to release the Indians from bondage and 
to ameliorate their condition. These were the fa- 
mous "New Laws" about which we have already 
seen something. 

While these laws were right in principle, they 
worked hardship to the Spaniards, in that they de- 
prived the latter of the chief source of their rev- 
enue and, if executed; would entail on large num- 



THE PERUVIANS 85 

bers of Spanish settlers great losses. Hence the 
resistance to them on the part of the Spaniards 
and even of the ecclesiastics. And the opposition 
was so far successful as to obtain in October, 
1545, a royal decree by which such parts of the 
"New Laws" as threatened the interests of the 
Spaniards in the New World were revoked. This 
action filled the Spanish colonists with joy and 
the enslaved Indians with despair. 

The Viceroys. — The first form of government 
established in Peru was municipal. Cuzco was 
converted into a Spanish town, as we have seen, 
by the appointment of two alcaldes and eight reg- 
idors. Ecclesiastical government was likewise es- 
tablished. Padre Valverde, who had been promi- 
nent in the arrest of Atahualpa, was made Bishop 
of Cuzco. Padre Luque was made Bishop of 
Tumbez. The Spaniards established municipal 
governments at Piura, Lima, Trujillo, Loja, La 
Paz and numerous other places. The Indians con- 
tinued a village-dwelling people. 

The form of government adopted for the whole 
country was at first the Audiencia, and then the 
Vireinate, which latter had been successfully tried 
in Mexico since 1535. The salary of the Viceroy 
was fixed at first at thirty thousand ducats, after- 
wards raised to forty thousand ducats, in order 
that he might be able to maintain himself in the 
regal state expected of him. Until the establish- 
ment of a vireinate in New Granada and another 
in Buenos Ayres, the jurisdiction of the Peruvian 
Viceroy was co-extensive with the Spanish posses- 
sions in South America, and the several Captains- 



86 THE PERUVIANS 

General in the other provinces were subject to his 
authority. 

There were viceroys good, bad and indifferent, 
in the long list of those who served in that capac- 
ity and held their brilliant courts in Lima. Lima 
at that time was the political, commercial and so- 
cial center of South America. The viceroys were 
selected from among the grandees of Spain. Many 
were lovers of letters, and the Universities of the 
New World produced scholars and authors not 
unworthy of comparison with those of Spain. The 
influence of Spaniards of distinguished Castilian 
ancestry and of gentle training kept the Spanish 
language, even as spoken by the common people, 
more than usually pure. Scarcely less influential 
than the viceregal government was the ecclesiasti- 
cal, which was greatly aided by the arrival, at an 
early date, of the Franciscan and Dominican orders. 
The Jesuits followed in 1567. The clergy con- 
trolled education, and every village had its priest 
who compelled the Indians to go to mass and other- 
wise made the services of the church an oppressive 
burden. The Inquisition was established in Peru 
in 157 1 and the first auto da fe at Lima was held 
two years later. The Indians were, however, ex- 
empt from its operations. 

From the Spanish view-point that government 
in Peru was considered good which gave Spain the 
largest revenue, while, on the other hand, Spain's 
irisatiable demands for gold and silver were a con- 
stant hindrance to what we would call good gov- 
ernment. For, to obtain the desired revenue, the 
Indians were not only cruelly oppressed in their 



THE PERUVIANS 87 

bondage, but they were subjected to a burdensome 
tribute. Those Spaniards who were interested in 
Peru undoubtedly desired the conversion of the 
Indians to Christianity and the establishment of 
a beneficent political order, provided both could be 
accomplished without interfering with the produc- 
tion of the greatest possible revenue. 

Colonization and government by Viceroys re- 
sulted in the creation of various social classes in 
the South American provinces. First of all, there 
were the white colonists of pure Spanish blocd, 
comprising the only recognized society in the so- 
cial organization that existed in Spanish America. 
They numbered in Peru, at the close of the wars 
between the conquerors and the Viceroy sent out 
from Spain in 1555, about eight thousand. They 
regarded Spain as their country and looked upon 
Peru with contempt. Another class was called 
Creoles. These consisted of persons of European 
blood born in Peru. They were not recognized 
as having the same rights and privileges, nor as 
being in the same social status, as the Spaniards. 
Scarcely below them and often confused with 
them were the half-breeds or mestizos. Below 
these were the Indians. Spain adopted generally 
toward her American colonies a policy destructive 
of every interest save those of the "Old Span- 
iards. ,, And as the Nineteenth Century dawned, 
there were signs everywhere apparent of the revolt 
of Spanish America, especially when Spain be- 
came involved in war at home and found her own 
nationality imperilled. 

The Spanish-American Revolution. — After 



88 THE PERUVIANS 

the revolt of the Indians, under the last Tupac 
Amaru in 1780, had been put down, a necessary 
reorganization of the Vireinate of Peru (then less 
extensive than formerly, by the establishment of 
the Vireinate of New Granada in 1740, and by 
that of Buenos Ayres in 1776), was accomplished 
in 1790 by the Viceroy Teodoro de Croix, who 
also instituted valuable reforms. But they came 
too late to check a growing desire for liberty 
among the educated classes in Peru, and the se- 
cret though widespread discussion among the Cre- 
oles of the abstract right of Peru to self-govern- 
ment. The two succeeding Viceroys (Francisco 
Gil de Toboado y Lemos and Ambrosio O'Hig- 
gins) , who were able and liberal rulers, only post- 
poned the revolution for a time. 

The Viceroy of Peru in 1806 was Abascal. He 
foresaw the gathering storm that was to sweep 
over all of the Spanish American countries, and, by 
his coolness, promptness and energy, he held Peru 
for the King of Spain, dependent as he was upon 
his own resources. Not only was Spain too much 
occupied at home by a desperate struggle for the 
maintenance of her nationality and independence 
against the armies of Napoleon, to spare money or 
troops to protect her interests in Peru, but the Vice- 
roy of Peru even managed to remit money to Spain, 
while he was recruiting armies from the native 
population and training them to become excellent 
soldiers in a cause for which they could feel no 
sympathy. For the pending struggle was between 
the Spaniards on the one side and the Creoles on 



THE PERUVIANS 89 

the other, and the Indians, if left free to choose, 
would naturally have sided with the Creoles. 

Abascal retired from the viceroyalty in 18 16 
and was succeeded by General Pezuela, w T ho was 
about to institute a campaign for the suppression 
of an insurrection in Buenos Ayres before it could 
spread and reach Peru, when he learned that Gen- 
eral San Martin, who was already posing as the 
"Saviour of Argentina," was marching to the as- 
sistance of Chile in its struggle for independence 
of Spain. San Martin was a military genius, as 
one must needs be to accomplish anything in the 
way of a campaign in South America, where there 
are lofty mountain ranges to be crossed and arid 
plains to be traversed in every warlike expedition. 
He quickly organized a small navy with which to 
contest the supremacy of the Pacific with Spain, 
and was so fortunate as to secure as the admiral of 
his fleet, Lord Cochrane, a Scotch adventurer of 
noble family, a daring fighter and skilful in stra- 
tegic enterprises. His cutting out and capturing 
the Spanish frigate "Esmeralda" from a number 
of smaller armed vessels under the protection of 
the guns of the fortress at Callao, on the night of 
November 5, 1820, is regarded as one of the most 
brilliant achievements of the kind on record. 

Aided by the fleet under Lord Cochrane, San 
Martin, after repeated interruptions and disap- 
pointments, landed an army of 4,500 Argentines 
and Chileans in Peru, and the desolating war, 
which had raged in every other part of Spanish 
1 South America, was at last transferred to the one 
remaining stronghold of Spain in the New World. 



go THE PERUVIANS 

The Viceroy had between twenty and twenty-five 
thousand troops, of whom nearly nine thousand 
were in Lima; and at first glance it seemed ab- 
surd for San Martin to advance against such 
forces with so small an army. But it subsequent- 
ly transpired that the army of the Viceroy 
swarmed with sympathizers with the cause of in- 
dependence and the army of General San Martin 
became stronger every day. 

Upon learning of the revolution in Spain and of 
the overthrow of absolutism there, Pezuela, at the 
demands of his generals, retired and was suc- 
ceeded by General La Serna. The latter began 
negotiations with San Martin, who proposed, as 
had been proposed by independents in other Span- 
ish American countries, the establishment of an in- 
dependent, constitutional monarchy in Peru, with a 
Bourbon prince as king. At the end of these fruit- 
less negotiations, La Serna evacuated Lima, on 
the 6th of July, 1821. San Martin entered the 
city a few days later, and, on the 28th of July, 
Peru was proclaimed an independent republic, 
with San Martin as temporary dictator under the 
title of "Protector." 

The Peruvian patriots now found that they 
were still without self-government, their Protec- 
tor being from a province practically foreign to 
them. In April, 1822, the royalists gave evidence 
th^t they had not disbanded, by capturing some of 
the patriot forces. To meet the trouble that was 
now imminent, outside help was necessary, and 
San Martin turned to Simon Bolivar, the famous 
soldier who had accomplished the independence of 



THE PERUVIANS 91 

Venezuela (181 7) and New Granada (1819), 
and had formed the Republic of Colombia, of 
which he was President. Bolivar answered the ap- 
peal of San Martin by setting out with a force of 
Colombians, and on his way captured Ecuador 
from the Spaniards and added it to the Colombian 
Republic. 

He was joined by San Martin at Quito. The 
conference between the two generals led to the 
retirement of San Martin and the advance of Boli- 
var, whose offers of assistance were accepted by 
the Peruvians. In December, 1824, the battle of 
Ayacucho was fought, in its results one of the 
most important battles ever fought in South 
America. The victory was with the patriots. 
Fourteen hundred of the royalists were killed and 
seven hundred wounded. Of the patriots only 
three hundred were killed and six hundred 
wounded. By the terms of the capitulation ar- 
ranged between the Viceroy La Serna and Gen- 
eral Sucre, who was in command of the patriots, 
the whole Spanish army — fourteen generals, 568 
officers, and 3,200 soldiers — became prisoners of 
war, and all the Spanish forces in Peru were 
bound by the surrender. The war for independ- 
ence was over. Callao Castle held out for thirteen 
months, and then surrendered ; and the last Span- 
ish flag floating over the South American main- 
land was hauled down. 

The Republic of Peru. — If there was one thing 
more than another for which the patriots of Peru 
were unfitted, it was self-government. This was 
a natural result of Spain's colonial policy; and, af- 



92 THE PERUVIANS 

ter independence from Spain was secured through 
battles fought for the Peruvians by Argentines 
and Colombians, the country began a troubled 
career, similar to that of every Spanish-American 
country. After the battle of Ayacucho, Peru be- 
longed to Bolivar to do with as he liked. He 
went through the form of summoning a congress 
and offering to resign his dictatorship, but there 
was nothing for the Peruvians to do but to beg 
him to retain the direction of affairs; and so he 
proceeded to lay the foundations of a great mili- 
tary confederation to include not only Venezuela, 
New Granada and Ecuador, already united un- 
der the name of the United States of Colombia, 
but all the remaining provinces of Spanish South 
America. In accordance with this plan in 1825, 
Bolivar created in Upper Peru a new nation 
named in his honor, Bolivia; and it seemed cer- 
tain that he would soon be virtually Emperor of 
all South America. But being called back to Co- 
lombia for the pacification of his own state of 
Venezuela, the patriots began to assert themselves. 
They recognized General La Mar as their first 
president. He was succeeded by Gamara. 

In 1833 anarchy prevailed throughout the 
country, which was partially quieted three years 
later by the establishment of a Peru-Bolivian Con- 
federation, of which Santa Cruz was proclaimed 
protector. The peace secured by this arrange- 
ment was but temporary. Twenty years passed 
after the independence of Spain was secured, be- 
fore anything like stable government was obtained 
for Peru. It would be difficult at any time dur- 



THE PERUVIANS 93 

ing that period to tell who was the legitimate 
chief magistrate of Peru. 

In 1844 General Ramon Castilla, a little, quiet, 
modest soldier, who had been one of the heroes of 
Ayacucho and had been engaged in all the revolu- 
tions since that time on the side of whatever prom- 
ised the most stable government, returned from 
exile, and, entering into the conflict then pending 
in Peru, succeeded in restoring order to the coun- 
try and was elected President. He proved in most 
respects an ideal chief magistrate, wise, sagacious 
and firm. Very opportunely new sources of wealth 
were disclosed at that time — guano and nitrate de- 
posits on the desert islands off the coast — and with 
these resources Castilla successfully solved the 
financial problems which had confronted Peru 
from the beginning. His successor inaugurated a 
period of national extravagance and corruption, 
but in 1854 Castilla headed a movement which 
placed him again in power until 1862, when he 
voluntarily retired to private life. 

In i860, under Castilla's w T ise influence, a con- 
stitution was adopted which is still the funda- 
mental law of the land. It provides for a central- 
ized government and gives to the executive, (con- 
sisting of a President and Vice-President elected 
for four years, assisted by a cabinet of five minis- 
ters), powers rather greater than those usual in 
a Republic. But it is liberal and humane in its 
guarantees to the citizens. It gives the suffrage 
to all Peruvians who can read and write, who 
own property and pay taxes. Slavery and Indian 
tribute were abolished and forced recruiting was 



94 THE PERUVIANS 

declared a crime. The legislative branch of the 
government consists of a senate (composed of for- 
ty-four deputies from the provinces, with proper- 
ty qualifications), and a house of representatives 
(one hundred and ten in number), nominated by 
the electoral colleges of provinces and districts, 
one member for every twenty thousand inhabi- 
tants. 

Castilla was succeeded in 1862 by his old friend 
General San Roman, a Peruvian Indian. San Ro- 
man died in 1863 and was peacefully succeeded by 
his Vice-President, General Pezet. The latter prov- 
ing w^eak at a time when Spain was threatening 
war, he was ousted by a revolution, and General 
Prado was made acting-President. The latter quick- 
ly repelled the Spaniards and then gave up the pres- 
idency to Colonel Balta, who was inaugurated in 
1868. Under his administration the Republic en- 
tered upon a career of public improvement, includ- 
ing the embellishment of cities, the creation of 
moles and harbors, the construction of railways, 
and the exploration of the Andes. It was also a 
career of extravagance and the creation of an enor- 
mous public debt. So great was the latter that 
two-thirds of the government revenues were in- 
sufficient to pay the interest on the foreign debt 
alone. 

Balta's administration closed by his sudden and 
violent death a few days before his term of office 
expired. He was succeeded by Don Manual Par- 
do, the first civilian to reach the presidential office 
in Peru. At the close of his term his reputation 
was that of the best president Peru ever had. But 



THE PERUVIANS 95 

his administration was one continual struggle with 
financial problems. In 1876, the payment of in- 
terest on the public debt was suspended and Par- 
do turned over the government to his successor ap- 
parently hopelessly bankrupt. 

The Nitrate War. — In 1879 began a war with 
Chile over the possession of the nitrate territory 
along the coast. In January, 1881, the Chilean 
army took possession of Lima and for two years 
collected the customs revenue of the country, 
while the country at large was in a state of an- 
archy. Iglesias, one of the revolutionary leaders, 
had the strength and courage to proclaim himself 
President and arrange terms of peace with Chile 
in October, 1883. The Peruvian flag again 
waved over the capital. But scarcely had this been 
accomplished when General Don Andres A. Car- 
ceres headed a warlike movement to oust Iglesias, 
and, at the end of 1885, ne succeeded. Carceres 
was elected President by a junta, and in 1886 be- 
gan the task of re-organizing Peru. The country 
was in a sad plight. The treasury was empty, the 
guano and nitrate revenues were lost, the govern- 
ment was hopelessly weighed down by debt, and 
foreign creditors were pressing for a settlement. 
There was nothing to offer these foreign creditors 
but the railways. The "Peruvian Corporation'' 
was formed which took over all of Peru's interests 
in the railways, the guano deposits, mines and 
public lands, under contract to release Peru from 
all responsibility for a sum amounting to more 
than £50,000,000 sterling. 

Recent Leaders. — Carceres was succeeded by 



96 THE PERUVIANS 

Colonel Bermudez, who continued his predeces- 
sor's policy but died in 1893 before the close of his 
term of office. A bloody insurrection ensued up- 
on this event, Lima being the storm center. The 
insurrection reached its acute stage on the 18th of 
July, 1895. It then gradually quieted down. 
General Pierola was elected President and was 
succeeded in 1899 by Romana, who was in turn 
succeeded in 1903 by Candano. 

Stable Government. — Two Presidents having 
thus been constitutionally elected and inducted in- 
to office, and both of them being civilians, would 
seem to imply that Peruvian government was at 
last becoming stable, and that the days of revolu- 
tion, civil war and political unrest have passed 
away. The country is steadfastly Roman Catho- 
lic, yet there is a tendency toward popular govern- 
ment, though the dominant party is that of the 
old aristocratic element, composed of the intelli- 
gence and wealth of the nation. 

The population of Peru is largely urban, and, 
to see the modern Peruvian, one would have but 
to visit some of the beautiful cities. Lima is not 
only the capital but the best representative city. 
Built, as we have seen, by Pizarro, it was adorned 
by the viceroys of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 
Centuries, and, after being nearly destroyed by 
earthquakes, was completely overthrown by that 
cause in 1746, when more than one thousand per- 
sons then perished. It was rebuilt, and is now the 
pride of the later day Peruvians, ranking among 
the most beautiful of the South American Cap- 
itals. 



THE PERUVIANS 97 

NOTE ON THE 

FESTIVAL OF THE SUN. 

From the account given by Sir Arthur Helps, in 
his Spanish Conquest of America, vol. 3, p. 338, 
we extract the following account of the princi- 
pal Festival of the Sun, celebrated in Cuzco, at 
the summer solstice : 

"The eve before the festival, the royal priests 
of the reigning house inspected and prepared the 
sacrifices. The virgins dedicated to the Sun 
kneaded the bread (only used on these occasions), 
which was to be given on the ensuing day, in com- 
munion, to the host of royal and great personages, 
while innumerable maidens prepared a similar 
bread that was to be divided, in like communion, 
amongst the whole assembled multitude. The 
sacred fire was now to be relit. Accordingly, the 
High Priest took a large bracelet, on which was 
a burnished concave mirror, by the aid of which 
he collected the rays of Sun, and igniting some 
red cotton, received from "the god's own hand" 
the new fire that was to be burnt in the Temple, 
and by the Sacred Virgins, and that was to con- 
sume the sacrifices from which the auguries of 
good and evil for the coming year were to be di- 
vined. 

"At last the day of the festival arrived. Early 
in the morning the great of the city was full of 
anxious beings, marshalled in due order according 
to their rank, unshod and reverently waiting the 
rise of their divinity. The hearts of all men 
there were beating high with hope and dread. 



98 THE PERUVIANS 

Perchance he might not deign to appear on this 
his festal day. Suddenly a chill shudder of ex- 
pectation ran through the crowd, and each man 
knew, though none had spoken, that the awful 
moment was at hand. Over the mountains came 
the silent herald, Dawn; and, then, swiftly fol- 
lowing, the Sun himself. At the first sight of 
their god, the assembled multitude fell down 
before him, a waving mass of kneeling figures, 
who, with open arms and outstretched hands, 
blew kisses in the air — their way of showing the 
humblest and most affectionate adoration. The 
brightness of the crowd lost none of its effect 
from their being encircled by the sombre walls of 
the palaces and the Temple. 

"Up rose the Inca — the one erect amidst so 
many prostrate; the one dark spot, for he alone 
wore black (the sacred color) amidst that shin- 
ing multitude. He then took two large golden 
vases full of wine, prepared by the Sacred Vir- 
gins. With the vase in his right hand, he pledged 
his great progenitor, the Sun. Having done this, 
he poured the wine into a wide-mouthed golden 
jar, from whence it flowed into a beautifully- 
wrought conduit-pipe, which led from the great 
square into the Temple. Thus it was that the 
Sun drank the wine that was pledged to him. 
The Inca then took a sip from the golden vase 
which he held in his left hand, and poured out the 
rest, drop by drop, into other golden vases, 
which the members of the Incarial family held in 
their hands. The chiefs, however great, who were 
not of royal race, did not partake of the wine." 



THE PERUVIANS 99 

BEST BOOKS IN ENGLISH 
ON THE PERUVIANS. 

Prescott, Wm. H. "The Conquest of Peru." 2 
vols. Phila., 1874. 

Helps, Sir Arthur. "Spanish Conquest of Peru." 
2 vols. London, 1900; "The Life of Pizar- 
ro." London, 1869. 

Markham, Sir Clements R. "History of Peru." 
Chicago, 1892. 

Squier, E. C. "Peru." New York, 1877. 

Winsor, Justin R. "Narrative and Critical His- 
tory of America," Chs. in Vols. I and II. 
Boston, 1889. 

Fiske, John. "Discovery of America," Vols. I 
and II. Boston, 1892. 

Adams, W. H. D. "Land of the Incas," Bos- 
ton, 1885. 



INDEX TO CONTENTS. 

Abascal, 88 Candano, 96 

Almagro, 55 Capac, Yupanqui, 20 

Andogoya, 55 Caranquis, 26 
Atahualpa, 50; imprisoned, Caras, 24 

58; offers gold, 62; gar- Carceres, 95 

roted, 65 Casas de las, 84 

Auto da fe, 86 Castilla, 91 

Ayacucho, 92 Castro, 71, 72 

Balboa, 55 ) Caxamarca, 52, 57, 58, 60, 70 

Balta, 94 Chalcachimi, 68 

Bermudez, 96 Chancas, 22 

Biru, 6 Chimu, 42 

Bolivar, 92 Cochrane, Lord, 89 

Bolson, 14 Condorcanqui, 80 

Burial-mounds, 43 Cordova, de, 54 

Cacha, 25 Cortes, 56, 60 

Callao, 89 Cuenca, 53 



.iAG. 



IOO 



THE PERUVIANS 



Cuzco, 8, 14, 17, 18, 22, 27, 52, 

70 

Encomienda, 76 1 

Gamara, 72 * 

Gasca, de la, 73 • 

Gonzalo, 56 

Huacas, 42 

Hualcopo, 25 

Huancas, 22 1 

Huascar, 51, 57 

Huayna Capac, 25-28, 51 

Human sacrifices, 20 

Iglesias, 95 

Incariate, 9, 51 

Incas, 8, 16 

Indian languages, 11 

Indies, Council of, 82 

La Mar, 92 

La Serna, 91 

Leon, Pedro de, 23 

Libro de Tasas, 77 

Lima, 69, 70 

Literature, 49 

Luque, 69, 85 

Mama Ocllo, 15, 19 

Manco Capac, 15, 28 

Manco Capac Yupanqui, 65, 
68, 70, 72, 73 

Medicine-men, 47 

Mendoza, 73 

Mitimaes, 22 

Numeration, 49 

Pachacamac, temple of, 63 

Paita, 57 

Pardo, 94 

Peru, boundaries, 6; name, 6; 
size of ancient, 26; gold- 
en age, 28; domestic ani- 
mals, 28; potato came 
from, 29; irrigation^ 29; 
terraces, 30; iron mines, 
31; arts, 31; hideous 
masks, 32 ; pottery, _ 33 ; 
metal work, 33; architec- 
ture, 34; remains oi tem- 
ples, 35; bridge building, 
38; military roads, 39; 
Temple of the Sun, 39; 
Tired Stone, 40; other 
great ruins, 40; religion, 
44; embalming the dead, 
' 48; literature, 49; art of 
writing, 49; reduced to 
vassalage, 76; under 



Spanish rule, 81; Span 
ish-American Revolution, 
87; auto da fe, 86; repub 
lie of, 91; nitrate war, 94 

Peruvians, social organiza- 
tions, 13 

Pezet, 94 

Pierola, 96 

Piruas, 6 

Pizarro, Francisco, 54, 56, 71 

Pizarro, Gonzalo, 56, 70, 73 

Pizarro, Hernando, 56 

Pizarro, Juan, 56, 70 

Quichuas, 7 

Quinine, 79 

Quipus, 49 

Quito, 24, 72 

Quitus, 51 

Quizquiz, 52, 71 

Religion, 44 

Rocca, 21 

Romana, 96 

Sacsahuamana, 18, 68 

San Martin, 89 

San Miguel, 69, 72 

San Roman, 94 

Santiago, 24 

Soto, Hernado de, 57, 59 

Sucre, 91 

Sun, Temple of, 39; Virgins 
of, 48; worship of, 45, 97 

Temples, 39 

Teodoro de Croix, 88 

Tiocajas, 72 

Tired Stone, 40 

Titu Atauchi, 57 

Titu Cusi Yupanqui, 68, 74 

Toledo, Don, 74 

Tomas, San, 8 

Toparca, 67 

Tupac, Amaru, 74 

Tupac Yupanqui, 24, 25 

Tumbez, 53, 69 

Tumibamba, 53 

Trujillo, 40, 54, 69 

Uira Cocha, 21 

Urco, 22 

Valdivia, 72 

Valver de, 85 

Vega, de la, 17 

Vela, Blasco Nunez, 72 

Viceroy government, 73 

Vilcabamba, 71 

Yahuar Huaccac, 21 



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